AV EN WARDS 



MOTHER,'MAR,Y- 





aass_JliL 



Book. 7?S^7 
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COPYRIGHT DEPOSre 



HEAVENWARDS 




THE DISCIPLES AT EMMAUS 



HEAVENWARDS 



BY 
MOTHER MARY LOYOLA 

OF THE BAR CONVENT, \ORK 



EDITED BY n - 

FATHER THURSTON, SJ. 



P. J. KENEDY & SONS 

PUBLISHERS TO THE HOLY APOSTOLIC SEE 

NEW YORK & PHILADELPHIA 

1910 



*^ 



4*^ \ 



Remigius Lafort, S.T.L., 

* Censor, 

3^^mprimatur : 

^JoHN M. Farley, D.D., 

Archbishop of New York, 

April 22y igio. 



Copyright, 19 io, by 
P. J. KENEDY & SONS 



NEW YORK 



©CI,A265818 



TO 
MOTHER CHURCH 

WHOSE OFFICE AND AIM IS TO KEEP OUR HEARTS ABOVE 

THE DANGERS, TRIALS, AND ALLUREMENTS OP 

THIS PASSING WORLD 

AND WHOSE DAILY ADMONITION FROM 

A THOUSAND ALTARS IS EVER 

"SURSUM CORDA!'* 



CONTENTS 

CHAFTES PAGE 

Preface xiii 

I. L-flETATUs Sum i 

II. The Hewing of the Stones . . . io 

III. Secrets (i) 14 

IV. Secrets (2) . 21 

V. Our Father 31 

VI. "Come to Me All!" 34 

VII. "I Send My Angel" (i) . . . .40 

VIII. "I Send My Angel" (2) . . . .49 

IX. The Book of Life 55 

X. "Crooked Ways" 60 

XI. Mediocrity versus Excellence . . 68 

XII. Hail Mary 81 

Xm. "Us Also" 86 

XIV. "Who Is My Neighbour?" ... 89 

XV. Hard Prayer 94 

XVI. "Who Is This?" 98 

XVII. Lest We Forget 102 

XVIII. Give Us This Day Our Daily Bread 108 

vii 



viii Contents 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XIX. '*All Thy Ways Are Prepared" . in 

XX. "ToLLE Lege!" 113 

XXI. Before Confession . • n? 

XXII. God with Us 119 

XXIII. Eventide 124 

XXIV. In the Storm 132 

XXV. My Creator 136 

XXVI. ''Stir Up Thy Might. . . . Stir 

Up Our Hearts, O Lord " . 141 
XXVII. ''Glorious in Holiness" . . . 144 
XXVin. "This Is the Will of God Concern- 
ing You" 148 

XXIX. Love in Chastisement . . .152 

XXX. "Open to Me" 157 

XXXL The Son of Man 163 

XXXn. "These Three" 168 

XXXIII. Details 173 

XXXIV. "What Wilt Thou that I Do for 

Thee?" 180 

XXXV. "Domine non Sum Dignus!" . .186 
XXXVI. "Reasonable Service" . . .189 

XXXVII. True Love 195 

XXXVin. "Be Ready" 199 



Contents ix 

CHAPTER PAGE 

XXXIX. Visits . 204 

XL. Wilfulness . . . .211 

XLI. Thirst 218 

XLII. ** Plentiful Redemption" . . . 227 

XLIII. "The Day OF Our Lord Jesus Christ" 235 

XLIV. St. Mary Magdalen .... 244 

XLV. Trust 248 

XLVL Running . 251 

XLVn. "Lord, Teach Us to Pray" . . 253 

XLVin. Our Angel Guardian . . . 255 

XLIX. "The Serpent Deceived Me" . . 259 

L. O Sacrum Convivium .... 265 

LL Patience ....... 267 

LIL SuRsuM Corda! 275 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



The Disciples at Emmaus 



The Holy Family of Nazareth 



Frontispiece 

FACING PAGE 
. . . 82 



The Communion of The Apostles 



The Good Shepherd 



186 
230 



PREFACE 

*' Men/' so Joubert wrote, just after the 
French Revolution, ** have torn up the roads 
which led to Heaven and which all the world 
followed; now we have to make our own 
ladders." Whatever truth may have under- 
lain these words at the beginning of the 19th 
century, they certainly have lost nothing of 
their point in the hundred years which have 
passed since they were first uttered. Never 
was there a period when young Catholics 
in their journey heavenward could count less 
upon public opinion and the force of good ex- 
ample to keep them in the right path. We 
may doubt if it has at any time been true that 
men were swept along in the crush and were 
carried to Heaven by their surroundings al- 
most in spite of themselves. But if such days 
ever existed, they are with us no longer. 
Heaven is now for all of us more or less a 
matter of scaling ladders. The broad road 
has grown broader with every new discovery 
of science and in much the same proportion 
the narrow way has grown narrower. Every 

xiii 



xiv Preface 

new facility of communication has filled 
modern life with greater restlessness and with 
the craving for fresh emotional excitement. 
Those who may read in such an old-fashioned 
work as Father Parsons' Christian Directory 
his impressive exposition of the text: ''with 
desolation the world is laid desolate because 
no man thinketh in his heart," can hardly 
forbear to smile at the venerable writer's 
earnestness w^hen they compare the distrac- 
tions of modern life with the life of three 
centuries back. Nevertheless we have to save 
our souls in the surroundings in which God 
has placed us. Nothing is to be gained by 
looking only at the difficulties and discour- 
agements. Things have not all altered for 
the worse, and to the credit side of the ac- 
count in the work of salvation as it presents 
itself to the modern Christian, must surely, 
be set such helps as Mother Mary Loyola 
offers to her thousands of readers in books 
like the present. 

What seems specially recommendable In 
these pages is the cheerful encouragement of- 
fered to all to look steadily forward to the 
goal of human life. The words Sursum 
cor da (Lift up your hearts) which embody 
the spirit of so many of these chapters, strike, 
as all will recognise, a note of consolation 
and of joy. The thought of " Home " brings 



Preface xv 

peace to the soul, while at the same time it 
should be enough to call forth our best ener- 
gies. Thus while Mother Loyola teaches us 
how to find " ladders " to scale Heaven, she 
lets us see that the most arduous part of the 
task lies In the simple resolution to fix our 
eyes steadily upon the welcome that awaits 
us. Once we do this, the fatigue of the road 
is lightened, death loses its terrors, the world 
has little power to distract, and we shall en- 
joy even here below some share of the hap- 
piness which is promised us in paradise. 

Uni trinoque Domino 
Sit sempitema gloria 
Qui vitam sine termino 
Nobis donet in patria. 

Herbert Thurston, S. J. 




L^TATUS SUM 

'*■! rejoiced in what hath been told me, we shall go into the House 
of the Lord.*" (Ps. 121.) 

RULY a cause for rejoicing — the 
good news fresh every day, 
brought home to me at my morn- 
ing prayer; in Mass and Holy 
Communion; whenever I say: "Our Father 
who art in Heaven '' ; whenever I hear, " Life 
everlasting," " Sursum corda," '' We are to 
go into the House of the Lord." 

We — not I alone. The joy is multiplied 
because to all the dear human race the in- 
vitation has gone out, to every redeemed soul 
the gates are thrown open. 

Yet there are some who find in this uni- 
versality of Redemption, this desire of the 
Creator to draw to Himself every one of His 
creatures, an argument against His singular 
love for them in particular. 

*' Our Lord indeed died for me on the 
Cross," they say, ''but it was not for me 
alone. He died for all. I am only one 
among the redeemed. I am not singled out 

1 



2 Heavenwards 

for Individual notice and love in the crowd 
now going up to the House of the Lord." 

What ! not singled out, not specially consid- 
ered, because all you hold dearest, all in any 
way connected with you are included in the 
invitation! Would this, then, be more ac- 
ceptable to you if they were excluded? Does 
the peasant maiden whom the King calls to 
share His throne, deem herself less loved 
because all her kinsfolk are summoned with 
her to Court? Moses and St. Paul, those 
lovers of their people, went so far as to dis- 
claim eternal happiness for themselves if their 
brethren might not share it. Let us at least 
own with joy and thankfulness that the de- 
lights of the House of the Lord are multi- 
plied to us beyond measure because of the 
dear familiar faces we shall see lit up with its 
glory and its bliss. 

And shall we grudge this cause for rejoic- 
ing to the rest of the elect, and not rather 
thank God that the joy of each is reflected as 
in dazzling mirrors on every side ? 

... I saw 
A hundred little spheres, that fairer grew 
By interchange of splendour.^ 

In that Land of perfect charity there is no 
solitary grandeur, no unshared joy. The days 

^Paradise, Canto XXII. Dante. Translation of H. F. Gary, 
M. A. 



Lcetatus Sum 3 

of '' meum et tuum " are past. It is the co-heir- 
ship of that glorious heritage that makes the 
happiness of Heaven. '' I saw a great multi- 
tude which no man could number, of all na- 
tions, and tribes, and peoples, and tongues, 
standing before the throne and in sight of the 
Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms 
in their hands. And they cried with a loud 
voice saying: Salvation to our God who sit- 
teth upon the throne, and to the Lamb. And 
all the Angels stood round about the throne, 
and the ancients and the four living creatures, 
and they fell down before the throne and 
adored God, saying: Amen. Benediction, 
and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, 
honour, and power, and strength to our God 
for ever and ever. Amen. . . . 

And a voice came out from the throne say- 
ing : Give praise to our God, all ye His serv- 
ants, and you that fear Him, little and great. 
And I heard as it were the voice of a great 
multitude, and as the voice of many waters, 
and as the voice of great thunders saying: 
Alleluia ; for the Lord our God the Almighty 
hath reigned." 

In this great chorus of praise in which An- 
gels and men join in alternate choirs, we no- 
tice — what it is so useful to note in these days 
of ours — the self-annihilation of the worship 
before the Throne; the pride and triumph in 



4 Heavenwards 

their God; the glory of being His servants; 
the words *' our God," again and again re- 
peated by that exulting family of His chil- 
dren, the elder creation and the younger, be- 
fore His Face. It is a common joy, a family 
joy, increased by every addition to the num- 
ber of the Blessed, by the rapture and en- 
thusiasm of each, by the special note of 
thanksgiving, the personal motives for glory 
and praise to God, brought by each. 

We shall not rejoice that we are singularly 
beloved to the exclusion of others, but rather 
that we are accounted worthy to be one of 
that multitude whom no man can number 
standing before the Throne and in sight of 
the Lamb. 

If we find selfishness cramping our hearts, 
let us go and sit down humbly at a pagan's 
feet and learn there 

. . . that sympathy with Adam's race 
Which in each brother's history reads its own.^ 

" I am a man," said Plato, '* everything hu- 
man interests me." Or let us beg of God 
a share in His gift to Solomon: '* And God 
gave to Solomon largeness of heart as the 
sand that is on the seashore." (Ill Kings 
4.) Better still, let us beg of the Sacred 
Heart, so often close to our own, that It 

^ Verses on Various Occasions, p. 129. Cardinal Newman. 



Lcetatus Sum 5 

would widen ours till there is room there for 
every one of our brethren, that is for every 
human soul. 

We are not forbidden to crave a special 
place in the Mind of God and in the Sacred 
Heart of Jesus. When we meet our Lord 
at Judgement, and He unfolds to us His eter- 
nal designs over us and His dealings with 
us all life through, we shall be overwhelmed 
with joyful confusion at the sight of His sin- 
gular love for us, at the almost incredible way 
in which our individual advantage has been 
studied, so to say, in the events that went on 
around us. But we have to bear in mind, 
that God's fatherly care is not less singular 
to each because it embraces all. Unlike our 
miserable little stream, which decreases in 
volume as it is divided, His love like the 
ocean overwhelms all, suffices for all, and is 
unspent, undiminished still. 

And so I rejoice that we — all God's chil- 
dren united to Him by sanctifying grace, and 
the numbers, estranged from Him just now, 
but to be His again before the end, and for 
all eternity — are journeying to the House of 
the Lord. 

Two things are to be noted here — the 
House, and the approach to it. This, because 
the House stands high, is an ascent all the 
way, not always steep, not always painful, at 



6 Heavenwards 

times even pleasant, yet, owing to our sloth- 
ful and untrained ways, our fickleness and 
love of ease, hard to most of us, perseverance 
on it to the end, to all of us. But there is en- 
couragement in the very hardness. It shows 
we are on the right road, '* the strait way that 
leadeth to life" (S. Matth. 7) — and that is 
everything. 

IVe shall go to the House — there must be 
effort, there must be progress. Yet we must 
not lose heart, as if advance to be real must 
be always patent. We advance if we make 
effort, if we persevere. We advance if we 
pray, coldly, it may be and with difficulty, 
yet regularly. We advance if we rise quick- 
ly after a fall, if we go frequently and with 
at least sufficient preparation to the fountains 
of grace, the Sacraments, if we keep up our 
heads and our hope through all the vicissi- 
tudes of the road, and the perplexing nature, 
at times, of God's dealings with us. 

To the House of the Lord — '' the place 
where Thy glory dwelleth." (Ps. 25.) What 
must it be in magnificence and in beauty ! We 
are so accustomed to see our God contenting 
Himself for our sakes with all that is mean- 
est in His creation, that we think but little 
of the splendour of the Heavenly Court. 
There are no images by which we can pic- 
ture it, the fairest scenes of this fair world, 



Lcetatus Sum 7 

heightened beyond the wildest flight of im- 
agination, are comparisons too base to serve 
us. The words of Scripture, as might be ex- 
pected, set us on the right track, but as hu- 
man words, they, too, are utterly inadequate 
to describe realities for which earth furnishes 
no counterpart. Where St. Paul fails, who 
shall hope to succeed? Caught up to the 
third heaven, he might have been expected 
to tell us something of its glory and its bliss. 
Yet he can only deal in negatives: ** Eye hath 
not seen nor ear heard, nor hath it entered 
into the heart of man to conceive what God 
hath prepared for them that love Him." (I. 
Cor. 2.) 

" Blessed are they who dwell in Thy 
House, O Lord, they shall praise Thee for 
ever and ever." (Ps. 83.) Our place there 
is being prepared by our own hands here and 
now. It is a part of God's tender plan for 
us that we should have the stimulus and satis- 
faction of carving out our own fortune, and 
at every moment of our probation here, by 
the humdrum work of each day, by every 
circumstance of joy or trial, be able to enrich 
our habitation for eternity. 

" In my Father's House there are many 
mansions." (S. John 14.) ''The small and 
great are there." (Job 3.) We may rank 
with either, the choice is ours now, but time 



8 Heavenwards 

is passing fast, the night is at hand in which 
no man can work; if we want to lay up treas- 
ure in Heaven, there is no room for delay. 

Majesty and familiarity we look upon as 
Incompatible. When the Queen of Saba saw 
the house which Solomon had built, '* she had 
no longer any spirit in her." (Ill Kings 
ID.) Not so will it be in the House of the 
Lord. Our Father's House is not glorious 
only but homely; we shall not be overpow- 
ered with splendour, but overwhelmed with 
welcomes and with love. There the deepest 
trembling worship will be no hindrance to a 
nearness of approach, a ravishing union with 
Him which throughout eternity will be ever 
fresh wonder and delight. 

And this is in store for every one of us! 
As w^e set our feet each morning on our daily 
path, will not the brightness streaming down 
from our Home gild the stones and rough 
places of the way? Shall we not rejoice in 
the very weariness of each day's journey 
which brings us nearer to the end? 

And will not the heartsinking that comes 
to us all at times make us mindful of our 
fellow travellers on the same road? Many 
of them have a harder lot than our own, car- 
ry heavier burdens, feel more the hardships 
and weariness of the way. God has placed 
us by their side to cheer and help them. 



Lcetatus Sum 9 

Others there are who have missed their road 
and are painfully seeking it. Others again 
have wilfully left the path and must regain 
it before nightfall. And then there are those 
whose night has come wherein no man can 
work. They have Home in sight and are 
sure of entrance there. But unless our char- 
ity succours them in their helpless suffering, 
they will be long shut out from its peace and 
joy. All these are with us in via, and all call 
upon us for the sympathy and assistance 
which fellow travellers have a right to claim. 
We are all children of the same Father, all 
redeemed at the same price, all called to the 
same eternal reward in our Heavenly Home, 
" the House of the Lord." 




II 

THE HEWING OF THE STONES 

**And the house, when it was in building, was built of stones hewed 
and made ready, so that there was neither hammer nor axe nor any tool 
of iron heard in the house when it was in building." (III. Kings 6.) 

^HAT a sight it must have been 
that rising of Solomon's glori- 
ous Temple day after day, and 
year after year, the builders at 
their silent work receiving the stones made 
ready to their hands and laying them in 
place ! What a scene again the far-off moun- 
tains where with noise and labour the eighty 
thousand masons hewed and squared the 
stones ! 

The Church sees in all this a figure of the 
Jerusalem now building like a city (Ps. 121) 
and of the preparation of the '' living stones " 
(I. Peter 2) for their heavenly resting place. 

whereas on earth 

Temples and palaces are formed of parts 
Costly and rare, but all material, 
So in the world of spirits nought is found, 
To mould withal, and form into a whole, 
But what is immaterial; and thus 
The smallest portions of this edifice, 
10 



The Hewing of the Stones 11 

Cornice or frieze, or balustrade, or stair, 
The very pavement is made up of life — 
Of holy, blessed, and immortal beings, 
Who hymn their Maker's praise continually/ 

Meanwhile the fashioning of the living 
stones is arduous work both for hewers and 
hewed. The more eminent the position to be 
occupied, the more careful is the preparation 
required, but for no part of the building is 
rough material accepted. ** The king com- 
manded that they should bring great stones, 
costly stones for the foundations, and should 
square them." (III. Kings 5.) 

Where and how are the living stones 
squared ? 

Here in this world, far away from the 
peace of the Heavenly City, and by means 
of the labours and trials of life. Each of 
these from the greatest to the least has its 
appointed task — to hew or to polish, not 
ruthlessly, nor recklessly, but in appointed 
measure, and to a definite end. There are 
the agonising pangs which do their work 
swiftly — separations, disillusions, failure, 
sharp suffering, physical and mental. And 
there is the constant chiselling of daily frets 
and worries, anxieties, and difficulties, less 
severe taken singly, but more trying by rea- 
son of the perpetual chafing, and the monot- 

^ The Dream of Gerontius, Cardinal Newman. 



12 Heavenwards 

ony of the pain. The stones are brought to- 
gether at times in a contact too close to be 
pleasant. They rub up against each other, 
grate and jar upon one another, sometimes 
with sudden collision, sometimes with persist- 
ent friction. Very disagreeable, no doubt, 
very trying, but that is just how the corners 
get rounded off and the polishing is done. 
We have to look to the end of the process, 
and think less of present labour and pain than 
of rest and reward everlasting. 

Besides faith and hope, we have the coun- 
sel of common sense and every day philosophy 
to help us here. The world is a big quarry 
in which there is no escaping the strokes of 
misfortune. Experience shows that blows 
fall heaviest on those who seek to avert them, 
and that in the long run it is the impatient 
and the rebellious who suffer most, whereas 
patience under the hand of God, after the ex- 
ample of Christ and His Saints, not only satis- 
fies for sin, and wins everlasting reward, but 
so assuages sorrow, that the sting and the bit- 
terness of the trial are alleviated beyond all 
expectation, and borne not with resignation 
only, but with peace and joy. 

Every motive, then, urges us to accept 
readily and even thankfully the conditions 
of our short life here. We cannot alter them, 
and unless we have let our hearts become 



The Hewing of the Stones 13 

warped by selfishness, we shall own that He 
who made us and made us for happiness, 
best knows the way that leads thereto, and 
that our wisdom and our welfare here and 
hereafter consist in leaving ourselves trust- 
fully in His hands. 




Ill 



SECRETS 
I 

IHERE has been a fascination 
about them from the beginning, 
due to the charm which attaches 
to mystery and the incentive they 
furnish to curiosity. It was this made Eve 
stop before the tree of the knowledge of good 
and evil, and wonder why the fruit that 
looked so fair and harmless was forbidden: 
which led her to listen to the tempter, and be 
brought, first to inquire into the reason of 
God's command, next to question His verac- 
ity, then to desire the knowledge of evil, and 
finally, to risk everything here and hereafter 
so she might penetrate behind the veil and 
assure herself by experience of what lay hid- 
den there. 

It almost looks as if those two in Paradise 
held, that because God had given them so 
much. He had wronged them by withholding 
anything, and by imposing an arbitrary com- 
mand respecting one particular tree. Unless 
we suppose in them something of this petu- 
lance of spoiled children, it seems inconceiv- 

14 



Secrets 15 

able that with the reverence for Him in which 
their souls must have been steeped by their 
vast knowledge of His works and their close 
intercourse with Him, they should have dared 
to measure their strength with His, and pro- 
voke Him to the execution of that — to them 
mysterious threat — ** you shall die the death." 

The more we think of it, the more inex- 
plicable appears the attitude of mind which 
led them to question His rights over them 
and all He had given them. Yet is not this 
what men have done ever since the first 
" Why? " was heard in Eden, what they are 
doing with more and more effrontery every 
day, what we ourselves do, times without 
number, in practice? We chafe under ** the 
obedience of faith" (Rom. i6) and the re- 
straints of the Commandments ; we want rea- 
sons for God's commands; we grudge Him 
His secrets; we are fretful with the uncer- 
tainties of the future and the obscurity which 
shrouds life beyond the grave. 

Why is this? How comes it that we are 
so impatient and exacting, so unmindful of 
our position as creatures; that truth and jus- 
tice, the foundation of all our relations with 
our fellow men, are forgotten in our deal- 
ings with Him who planted their instincts in 
our hearts? 

We do not thus treat one another. Every 



16 Heavenwards 

man may screen off from his neighbour, nay, 
even from his nearest and dearest, not only 
the more intimate workings of his mind and 
heart, but as much of his plans and circum- 
stances as he thinks proper to conceal. No 
one questions this right, on the contrary to 
worm his secret from him or to discover it 
by treachery, is held to be the most flagrant 
injustice. We value the confidence our friend 
shows us by letting us into his secrets pre- 
cisely because this act is a spontaneous con- 
cession on his part. We take what he gives 
and, beyond this limit, respect his silence. 

But this law of ordinary propriety does 
hold good when there Is question of the In- 
comprehensible God. What they cannot un- 
derstand, too many either resent or deny. 
That He should have secrets, impenetrable 
to them, is intolerable; that He should re- 
quire the subjection of their intellect to mys- 
teries they cannot fathom, and the obedience 
of their will to laws that impose restraint on 
deed and word and thought, is an outrage on 
their reason and their liberty. But is it won- 
derful that the ** God of the heavens and 
Lord of the whole creation" (Judith 9), 
'* who has made all things that are under the 
cope of heaven" (Esther 13), should have 
secrets incommunicable to us? '' The works 
of the Highest are glorious, and secret, and 



Secrets 17 

hidden." (Ecclus. ii.) '' Who shall search 
out His glorious acts?" (Ecclus. i8.) 
" What we can know is as a spark," (Ecclus. 
42) ''for we have seen but a few of His 
works " (Ecclus. 43). '' We shall say much 
and yet shall want words ; but the sum of our 
words is, He is all." (Ecclus. 43.) 

Society visits with heavy penalties those 
who forget their place in it, and the higher 
the ground trespassed on, the more heinous 
is the offence. If amongst men, who after all 
are equal as to essentials, pretence is so in- 
sufferable, how must the airs we give our- 
selves in His Presence appear in the sight 
of the Lord of heaven and earth ! 

We resent the inevitable. We expect the 
Incomprehensible to be easily understood, or 
we will not believe. '' How can these things 
be? " Nicodemus asked. ''Art thou a mas- 
ter in Israel and knowest not these things? " 
was our Lord's reply. " If I have spoken 
to you earthly things and you believe not, how 
shall you believe if I shall speak to you heav- 
enly things? " The ABC was beyond the 
master in Israel, how could he attain to the 
comprehension of the sublimest truth ! 

Impossibilities are not asked of us. We 
are required to believe on the word of God, 
not to understand. And this should not be 
difficult. For if God by His very nature is 



18 Heavenwards 

incomprehensible, He is also the very Truth. 
What He reveals we can never fully under- 
stand, but reason itself tells us we can render 
it fullest belief. " It is not necessary for thee 
to see with thy eyes those things which are 
hid." (Ecclus. 3.) Nor is it desirable. Bet- 
ter to lie on our face and adore in silence than 
to peer curiously into what is beyond and 
above us. It is not so much that our weak 
eyes want light, as that the light is too strong 
for them: *' He that is a searcher of majesty 
shall be oppressed by glory." (Prov. 25.) 
Better to trust the love that with the same 
hand gives and withholds, than to pine for 
knowledge that we are not ready for yet. 
'' What I do thou knowest not now but thou 
shalt know hereafter." (S. John 13.) ''I 
have yet many things to say to you but you 
cannot bear them now." (S. John 16.) 

Not only are there depths in the Divine 
counsels that we could not fathom, but sights 
we could not bear, and calls for generosity 
which with our present grace we could not 
meet. 

Did we but see, 
When life first open'd, how our journey lay 
Between its earliest and its closing day, 
Or view ourselves as we one time shall be 
Who strive for the high prize, such sight would break 
The youthful spirit, though bold for Jesu's sake.^ 

^ Out Future, Versa on Various Occasions, Cardinal Newman. 



Secrets 19 

It IS a merciful Providence that hides 
these things from us. We misread continual- 
ly what we do see, or think we see — injustice 
and oppression carrying all before them, meek 
virtue unrequited and trodden under foot; 
the prosperous sated with the good things of 
life, the patience of the poor strained beyond 
endurance; the good cause failing on a thou- 
sand fields, evil unchecked and triumphant 
everywhere. We are puzzled and troubled 
by the strange littlenesses and frailty of the 
good, the success of the wicked, the scandals 
in holy places, the defeat of high endeavour, 
the fascination of the broad way, the power 
of temptation, the unaccountable patience 
and predilections of God, the sufferings of 
the innocent and the helpless. 

Life is full of problems for us, but many 
of them are only such from our faltering faith 
in the Wisdom and Love and Sovereignty of 
God. We credit a general with ability to car- 
ry through a well-laid plan; we trust the 
workman with the frail vessel he commits to 
the furnace. But that the Almighty and the 
Allwise should be able to bring triumphantly 
through conflicting elements His own eternal 
designs — this is a trial to our faith! 

The thought of the Sovereignty of God is 
very helpful when we come back weary and 
perplexed from an outlook on men and things, 



20 Heavenwards 

and find no answer to the questions that dis- 
turb us : 

'* Thou art just, O Lord, and Thy judge- 
ment is right." (Ps. Ii8.) 

'' The judgements of the Lord are true, 
justified in themselves." (Ps. i8.) 

'* Is it not lawful for me to do what I 
will?" (S. Matth. 20.) 

'' And he said: I believe. Lord, and falling 
down he adored Him." (S. John 9.) 




IV 

SECRETS 
2 

|0D has His secrets — and we have 
ours. And, as mutual love de- 
mands, we exchange them. He 
tells us His as far as it is good for 
us to know them ; we pour ours day and night 
into His willing ear. 

Everyone knows how confidence in this 
shape wins the heart. It is one of the surest 
ways of directing a budding friendship. 
Some one tells us his secret, and forthwith, 
from being careless listeners, we find our- 
selves transformed into eager admirers or 
sympathisers, ready to champion against all 
comers the cause of our new client. Such is 
the instantaneous response that the trust of 
another wakes in the human heart. 

And not there only but in the Heart of 
God Himself. He loves our trust and there- 
fore He loves to hear our secrets. It is no 
objection to say that He knows them already. 
He counts as unknown what He does not hear 
from ourselves. '' What are these discourses 
which you hold one with another as you walk, 

21 



22 Heavenwards 

and are sad?" Did He not know ? Did He 
need the long story of the two disciples on 
the road to Emmaus to acquaint Him with 
the event of the Friday? No, but He loved 
to have them confide it all to Him. Their 
hearts needed the unburdening, and as a per- 
fect listener He let them tell out all their 
trouble, as if for the first time He had heard 
of the mighty Prophet and His condemna- 
tion and death. What a relief that outpour- 
ing to Him must have been ! 

" Yes," we say perhaps, ** for there was 
the near Presence and the Voice and the vir- 
tue that went forth from Him to w^ork the 
change and make their hearts burn within 
them. All this is wanting to us." 

Not all; the Presence and the virtue, all 
but the outward Form and the Voice, we too 
may have. We must not be petulant with 
God, nor dictate conditions to Him, nor let 
His marvellous condescension make us forget 
our place. We must not act like fretful chil- 
dren who push from them a costly gift be- 
cause it is not the toy on which they have set 
their hearts. If we would think a little more 
of the amazing way in which He stoops to 
us, and allows us intercourse with Himself, 
there would be no room for repining because 
we have not here and now what is reserved 
for us in Heaven. 



Secrets 23 

Nor must we object that God knows what 
we want before we ask. JVe do not know 
what He wants. He has designs over us that 
we could never have guessed, graces He in- 
tends to give us for ourselves and for others, 
and it is through prayer that these graces are 
given. The object of prayer is not only, as 
we are too apt to think, to get from God all 
we can, but to place ourselves at His disposal 
that He may do His Will in us and get from 
us the best service He can. 

There are difficulties in this intercourse, 
no doubt, but not greater than those which 
attend our confidences to one another. How 
often it may happen that the disclosure of 
our secret to a friend leaves us more troubled 
than before. We spoke in an unguarded mo- 
ment and regret our confidence now; or we 
question his prudence and so fear for its safe- 
ty; or we were under the influence of strong 
feeling which so affected our representation of 
the affair as to oblige us to distrust the coun- 
sel given. Or again, the complications of the 
situation were not grasped, the advice was 
wide of the mark and we are in a worse 
plight than before. Even when our trouble 
is understood, and meets with the kindest sym- 
pathy, how often the power to help is want- 
ing ! How often, too, it is we ourselves who 
have been wide of the mark; we could not 



24 Heavenwards 

grasp our trouble which, like some volatile 
spirit, escapes when we want to analyse it. 
How should another deal satisfactorily with 
what we cannot bring to light! 

Now, all this has no place in our relations 
with God. ** No thought escapeth Him, and 
no word can hide itself from Him.'' (Ecclus. 
42.) *' Say not: I shall be hidden from 
God "... for *' every heart is understood 
by Him." (Ecclus. 16.) "He seeth from 
eternity to eternity and there is nothing won- 
derful before Him." (Ecclus. 39.) The 
good and the bad in us He knows: *' My of- 
fences are not hidden from Thee," says 
David (Ps. 68.) ; and on the other hand He 
Himself says: '* I know thy works, and thy 
faith and thy charity, and thy patience." 
(Apoc. 2.) 

When we speak to our Father who seeth 
in secret (S. Matth. 6.) we speak to Him 
who sees the whole trouble from beginning 
to end as it is, with perfect clearness of de- 
tail, through all its intricacies, with all its 
influences and consequences for ourselves and 
for others. We have not to choose our words 
carefully lest we be misunderstood, or fear 
the effects of overwrought fancy, or the dan- 
ger of harming others. With what astound- 
ing boldness Job speaks out the anguish of 
his soul before God: 



Secrets 25 

*' I will speak to the Almighty, and I 
desire to reason with God. (Job lo.) 

Am I a sea or a whale that Thou hast 
enclosed me in a prison ? 

Thou wilt frighten me with dreams and 
terrify me with visions. 

I have done with hope, . . . spare me for 
my days are nothing. 

How long wilt Thou not spare me . . . 
what shall I do to Thee, O keeper of men? 
Why hast Thou set me opposite to Thee and 
I am become burdensome to myself? 

Why dost Thou not remove my sin? (Job 
7.) Tell me why Thou judgest me so. 

Doth it seem good to Thee that Thou 
shouldst calumniate me and oppress me the 
work of Thy hands? " (Job 10.) 

His '' troublesome comforters," scandal- 
ised at language which seemed to them in- 
temperate, not to say blasphemous, took upon 
themselves to champion God Almighty and to 
reprove with indignant zeal His afflicted 
servant. Job replies meekly: *' Indeed I 
know it is so . . . what am I that I should 
answer Him and have words with Him? 
(Job 9.) What can I answer who have 
spoken inconsiderately? I will lay my hand 
upon my mouth. (Job 39.) I have spoken 
unwisely and things that above measure ex- 
ceed my knowledge. Therefore I reprehend 



26 Heavenwards 

myself and do penance in dust and ashes/* 
(Job 42.) 

Did God reprehend him? 

And the Lord said to Eliphaz the The- 
manite: " My wrath is kindled against thee 
and against thy two friends, because you have 
not spoken the thing that is right before Me, 
as My servant Job hath. . . . Go to My 
servant Job and offer for yourselves a holo- 
caust: and My servant Job shall pray for 
you : his face I will accept, that folly be not 
imputed to you : for you have not spoken right 
things before Me as My servant Job hath. 
And the Lord gave Job twice as much as he 
had before . . . and the Lord blessed the 
latter end of Job more than his beginning.'* 
(Job 42.) 

We should read this marvellous history to 
know the lengths to which expostulation with 
God may go, and be consistent with humility, 
reverence and absolute trust; the condescen- 
sion of God in justifying His dealings with 
us ; the zeal with which He takes upon Him- 
self the defence of His servants; His delight 
in their fidelity under trial; and the joy with 
which He hastens to praise and reward when 
the hour for both has come. Like St. Paul 
later, Job knew in whom he had believed, and 
he was not afraid that his bold words would 
draw upon him rebuke and punishment. 



Secrets 27 

*' For behold my Witness is in Heaven, and 
He that knoweth my conscience is on high." 
(Job i6.) ''Although He should kill me 
I will trust in Him . . . and He shall be my 
Saviour." (Job 13.) 

'' Secret things to the Lord our God," 
(Deut. 29) is the admonition of Scripture. 
Have we no secret things to confide to Him ? 
No discontent perhaps, with a life of aimless 
drifting, a life of which self is the beginning 
and the end? Is there no longing at times 
for ''a more excellent way," (I. Cor. 12) 
a more strenuous service of God, a more 
honest return to Him for all He has spent 
on us? Have we no secret fears for our- 
selves or for those we love, of which to tell 
Him? 

Some of us take as our motto: '' My se- 
cret to myself, my secret to myself," (Isaias 
24) and seek counsel of none in time of need. 
This is unwise, for Scripture says : ''Take wise 
counsel." (Ecclus. 6.) " Say not: I am suffi- 
cient for myself." (Ecclus. 11.) Some, going 
to the other extreme, so far forget the ad- 
vice of the Holy Spirit: " Let one of a thou- 
sand be thy counsellor," that they seek a 
thousand counsellors in every difficulty, and 
what is worse, make free not with their own 
secrets only but with those of others. In both 
these classes there is indiscretion. And both, 



28 Heavenwards 

perhaps, neglect the recommendation: '* Se- 
cret things to the Lord our God." 

If we would train ourselves to take to Him 
all that concerns us — desires, responsibilities, 
plans, perplexities, hopes, and fears, and dis- 
appointments, failure and success, our falls 
and our victories, our defects natural and ac- 
quired; how a temptation teases us, or the 
sense of sin or distance from God weighs 
upon us; how the illness of a friend is going 
badly, or indiscriminate reading is harming 
one we love — talking all this over with Him 
simply and trustfully as with our best and 
most trusty friend, we should soon find the 
reward of our confidence in the union with 
Him that intercourse such as this brings 
about, a union which does not end with our 
time of prayer but is a resource all day long 
and all life through. We should find that 
we have in Him what we want in ourselves — 
light, and strength, and the peace which 
passeth all understanding. 

Talking over our concerns with a friend, 
we have said, but indeed this is saying too 
little, for '' I will not level God with man." 
(Job 32.) The most intimate converse that 
friendship can inspire is but a feeble shadow 
of what our intercourse with God may be, of 
the absolute freedom and trust with which 
by a single word, or without word at all, we 



Secrets 29 

may lay open our souls before Him with 
whom we have relations unspeakably closer 
and more tender than any here on earth. 

We call Him Father, Brother, Friend. 
We should call Him also Mother, Sister, 
Bridegroom, Lover. All these and infinitely 
more than earth's tenderest names imply, He 
is to us, and therefore He claims as His 
right the privilege of all these sweet rela- 
tions — to hear all about us from ourselves. 
If He says to us : " Treat thy cause with thy 
friend " (Prov. 25.) , much more does He ex- 
pect to hear that cause Himself. *' Come to 
Me all you who labour," is His invitation 
to us every one. The Incarnation and the 
Eucharist are but the expression of His desire 
to be with us and intimately united with us, 
a desire so vehement that it breaks through 
all barriers, flings aside the laws of Nature, 
and creates for itself a whole world of mira- 
cle and mystery bewildering and overpower- 
ing to all but Faith. 

Oh what we lose by ignoring Love like 
this ! We scorn its advances and go our way, 
one to his farm, another to his merchandise, 
never dreaming of the blessings that would 
have overflowed even upon our interests of 
this world had we treated of them first with 
our Friend. 

It must be allowed that this constant and 



30 Heavenwards 

trustful recourse to God, like all other good 
habits, takes time to form. At first the ef- 
fort will be irksome ; our restless nature will 
want the sights and sounds of response that 
reward the confidences of friends. We must 
have patience and persevere. Response will 
come, more direct, more surprising, more 
helpful by far than any friendship of this 
world could bring. *' Wait a little while," 
says Job (Job 6), and Judith: " Let us hum- 
bly wait for His consolation" (Judith 8), 
^' for they shall not be confounded that wait 
for Him." (Isaias 49.) 

I see that thou believest these things 
Because I tell them, but discem'st not how; 
So that thy knowledge waits not on thy faith: 
As one who knows the name of thing by rote, 
But is a stranger to its properties, 
Till other's tongue reveal them. Fervent love 
And lively hope with violence assail 
The kingdom of the heavens and overcome 
The will of the Most High; not in such sort 
As man prevails o'er man; but conquers it 
Because 'tis willing to be conquered; still. 
Though conquer'd, by its mercy, conquering.* 

^ Paradise, Canto XX. Dante, 




OUR FATHER 
"'Is not He thy Father?'' (Deut. 32.) 

jHE revelation of Himself given 
to us in this name, explains every 
other revelation and, in a sense, 
demands every other. If the 
Eternal God is our Father, what may we not 
expect? The Incarnation, the Redemption, 
the Eucharist, the Church with its infallible 
guidance, the forgiveness of sins, the everlast- 
ing inheritance — all flow from the blessed 
truth that we are children of God, and '* most 
dear children." (Ephes. 5.) 

To seek us when we had strayed from Him, 
the Eternal Son must come on earth. His 
Blood is not too great a price to pay for our 
ransom. His whole Humanity and Divinity 
are not too stupendous a food for our daily 
nourishment. The Providence of our Heav- 
enly Father must extend to every detail of our 
lives, His Wisdom make every circumstance, 
every alternation of joy and sorrow turn to 
our good, if we will only correspond with 
His designs. 

31 



32 Heavenwards 

When we turn our back upon our Father's 
Home, and, shaking off the restraint of His 
Presence, waste in self-indulgence the precious 
gifts He had entrusted to us. He does not 
give us up, nor transfer His love elsewhere, 
but follows us with His pity and compassion, 
and patiently waits for our return. He never 
tires of us. Our defects and shortcomings, 
the selfishness, changeableness, and incon- 
sistency which disconcert at times even our 
best friends, do not disgust Him. He can 
bear to know us just as we are — and love us 
still. 

We use His gifts against Him, and He 
presses new ones upon us ; we are shamelessly 
shabby with Him, and, as if He had not no- 
ticed it. He treats us in return with the most 
lavish generosity. He makes much of any 
little bit of service we do Him, is really 
pleased with it and repays it by a return 
altogether out of proportion to it. Let us 
put together all we have ever heard or seen of 
the tenderness and compassion of an earthly 
father, heighten it by all we can imagine of 
indulgence and forgiveness and solicitude, and 
we have not yet the faintest shadow of the 
love of our Father Who is in Heaven. Like 
an earthly father He studies our character 
and tastes and needs. How often has sudden 
relief in pain of body or mind, a startling an- 



Our Father 33 

swer to prayer, a joyful surprise He has pre- 
pared for us, brought tears to our eyes ! If 
it has been thus during our time of schooling 
here, what will it be when we are at Home ! 
O my Heavenly Father, let me keep close 
to Thy side, let me cling fast to Thy hand 
all the days of my life on earth. Let me wor- 
ship Thee with profoundest adoration, sur- 
render myself to Thee with unquestioning 
trust, love Thee with all the filial affection of 
Thy most loving children, that so I may 
make what return I am able for letting me, 
nay commanding me to call Thee '' Father." 




VI 

'' COME TO ME all! " 

'F we put into one scale the warn- 
ings of Scripture which might de- 
ter us from Holy Communion, 
and in the other the loving words 
that invite us to our Lord's Table, we shall 
see how surprisingly the last outweighs the 
first. 

There is, it is true, His condemnation of 
the guest who came unprepared to the mar- 
riage feast ; there are St. Paul's terrific words 
against those who eat this Bread unworthily. 
But who shall count the words and ways by 
which our Lord invites us to himself ! 

'' Come to Me all you who labour." (S. 
Matth. II.) *' I am come not to call the just 
but sinners." (S. Mark 2.) ** If anyone 
thirst, let him come to Me." (S. John 7.) 
*' Suffer the little children to come to Me." 
(S. Mark 10.) " All that the Father giveth 
Me shall come to Me and him that cometh to 
Me I will not cast out." '' I am the bread 
of life, he that cometh to Me shall not hun- 
ger. ... I am the living bread which came 

34 



" Come to Me All! '' 35 

down from heaven. If any man eat of this 
bread he shall live for ever. . . . Except you 
eat the flesh of the Son of Man, and drink 
His blood, you shall not have life in you. He 
that eateth My flesh and drinketh My blood 
hath everlasting life and I will raise him up 
in the last day. . . . He that eateth My 
flesh and drinketh My blood abideth in Me 
and I in him. As I live by the Father, so 
he that eateth Me the same also shall live by 
Me." " You will not come to Me that you 
may have life." (S. John 6.) '' If any man 
open to Me the door, I will come to him and 
will sup with him and he with Me." 
(Apoc. 3.) 

Invitations, threats, entreaties, promises — 
all these He uses, after the fashion of love, 
to bring about His union with us, to convince 
us that His *' delights are to be with the chil- 
dren of men." (Prov. 8.) Let us think over 
three of these promises. 

(i.) He that eateth My flesh and drink- 
eth My blood abideth in Me and I in Him. 
Ponder the amazing union implied in this 
mutual indwelling, like the ocean in the 
sponge and the sponge in the ocean. 

Abideth — for it is not a passing visit that 
leaves no trace. This is true even of recep- 
tion at long intervals. But much more in the 
case of frequent, and beyond our power to ex- 



36 Heavenwards 

press In daily Communion, does Christ abide 
with and in the soul, the Sacramental Pres- 
ence establishing a union that subsists by its 
fragrance and by its fruits after the precious 
time of thanksgiving is past, to vivify every 
action of the day and be renewed with ever 
increasing efficacy on the morrow^ 

(2.) He that eateth Me the same also 
shall live by Me. The body lives by its daily 
food, and its life will be vigorous in propor- 
tion as its nourishment is good and generous. 
Our soul feeds — daily if it will — on the no- 
blest Food God Himself can provide, a Food 
that repairs unceasingly the losses sustained 
in the spiritual conflict, by venial sin, by 
want of vigilance, by infidelity to grace, by 
the drag of the corruptible body on the soul. 
Like corporal nourishment, but in an incom- 
parably higher manner, it builds up, invigo- 
rates, heals, refreshes, delights, wards off dis- 
ease and death. Is any soul so weak as not 
to gain some strength from this Divine Food? 
Can any disease persistently resist this rem- 
edy? What more can Omnipotent Love do 
than give us — not Its help only, but Itself, by 
the undreamed of device of becoming our 
Food and in this way uniting us with the 
Source of all good! '' I am come that they 
may have life and may have it more abun- 
dantly." (S. John 10.) 



''Come to Me All!'' 37 

Here we draw from the Saviour's foun- 
tains the courage we need in the battle of life; 
patience with others and with self; the brave 
humility that rises promptly after every fall; 
the right intention that sanctifies our words 
and works ; the charit}" that seeks not its own 
and brightens hfe for all around it; perse- 
verance in well-doing, in monotonous work, 
in that dry and seemingly unanswered prayer 
which is the great difficulty^ in the ser\'ice of 
God. Here, from our union with Him, we 
learn little by little to *' put on Christ," (Gal. 
3.) to see from His standpoint, to adopt His 
judgements of passing and eternal things, to 
take to heart His interests, to desire nearness 
to Him even at the cost of pain and shame. 
Thus we come to live by Him, thus His life 
within us shows itself in all manner of spirit- 
ual beauty and fruitfulness. 

(3.) He that eateth My flesh and drink- 
eth My blood hath everlasting life, and I ziill 
raise him up in the last day^ — The neces- 
sary consequence of a union with the Sacred 
Humanity, so close that earth can furnish no 
parallel with it. The soul of the worthy 
communicant has now eternal life in pledge 
and promise, and will be called hereafter to 
share in the life and glor\^ of its Saviour. 
He who has not suffered His Holy One to 
see corruption, will raise up in glorious beauty 



38 Heavenwards 

those members of His which on earth have 
been so closely united to their Divine Head. 
'' We know that when He shall appear we 
shall be like Him because we shall see Him 
as He is." (I.S.Johns.) 

Can we have further doubts as to His de- 
sire to see us often, daily, if possible, at His 
Table? Do we find the words of Scripture 
have been strained in their interpretation? 
Or is our hesitation in accepting and acting 
upon them due solely to the sense of our un- 
worthiness ? 

Our Lord has removed this all but unsur- 
mountable hindrance in a way perfectly mar- 
vellous. The Church which in the past has 
been wary in her words and has only con- 
strained her children under grievous penalty 
to Communion once in the year, has spoken 
her mind in our days with a clearness and an 
earnestness that should sweep away the last 
particle of honest difficulty from every mind. 
The Vicar of Christ has said what no theolo- 
gian would have dared to say — that Christ 
our Lord desires to meet us one and all in 
the embrace of a daily Communion. The 
times grow more and more perilous as the 
end draws nearer; snares thicken; human re- 
spect is more enslaving; the cares and pleas- 
ures of the world are more enthralling; the 
flesh is more exacting; the devil more wrath- 



''Come to Me All!'' 39 

ful, knowing that he has but a short time. 
We must have Christ with us if we are to 
overcome and persevere to the end. We 
must be drawn into His open arms — or 
driven into them. 

And therefore Pius X. has spoken — not 
indeed to constrain or lay any further injunc- 
tion upon us, but to assure us so unmistakably 
of the desire of our God to be with us in 
frequent Communion, that henceforth the 
question is placed beyond the reach of doubt 
or even of discussion. No one may hinder 
us, no one may frighten us ; the easiest of con- 
ditions are all we have to fulfil. Provided 
only we are free from conscious grievous sin, 
and that our intention is '' right " ; that is, 
provided we go from the desired motive of 
pleasing God, of gaining help in our spiritual 
needs, and the like, we may go to Him fear- 
lessly, go to Him daily — and be welcome 
guests. 

'* O how good and sweet is Thy Spirit, O 
Lord!" (Wisd. 12.) 



VII 



*' I SEND MY ANGEL " 



"Behold I will send My Angel who shall go before thee, and keep 
thee in thy journey and bring thee into the place that I have prepared. 

Take notice of him and hear his voice and do not think him one to 
be contemned: for he will not forgive when thou hast sinned . . . 

But if thou wilt hear his voice, and do all that I speak, I will be an 
enemy to thy enemies, and will afflict them that afflict thee.'' (Exod. 

23.) 

" See that you despise not one of these little ones, for I say to you 
that their Angels in Heaven always see the face of My Father who is 
in Heaven." (S. Matth. 16.) 

N easy method of prayer that 
combines mental and vocal, is to 
take some familiar words and 
dwell thoughtfully on them one 
by one, extracting from each whatever of 
strength or fragrance or sweetness we can 
get it to give put. The above passages on 
the holy Angel Guardians lend themselves 
well to this kind of prayer. 

Behold! — A word used in Scripture to ar- 
rest the attention or to express wonder at an 
announcement to follow. Here God would 
have me consider intently a marvellous dis- 
position of His Providence in my favour. 

40 




"I Send My AngeV 41 

/ send — This blessed spirit who Is my con- 
stant companion has his commission from 
God Himself. As truly as the Angel Gabriel 
was sent to Mary, is my Angel sent to me. 
And it is not any Angel that is appointed as 
my guardian, but one selected out of all that 
innumerable host by the Wisdom of God and 
the Love of God, because of his special fit- 
ness for the guidance of my soul. The Holy 
Angels are not all alike, each has his own in- 
dividuality as we have, his particular excel- 
lence and gifts by which he is known among 
the rest. And it is on account of these gifts 
that my Angel has been chosen by God for 
me. In consequence of this choice, God has 
given him a strong affection for my soul, with 
power to understand it and light for its di- 
rection. If I am wise I shall beg His Divine 
Majesty to give him more and more light 
about me ; about my place in God's universal 
plan ; the work I am called to do ; my difficul- 
ties and dangers ; the graces I need to be able 
to give to God the special service He conde- 
scends to ask of me ; about my tendencies, my 
temptations, my duties. As to all these things 
I should pray God my Angel may know me 
thoroughly that he may keep me in safety. 

My Angel — Thus does the Divine Good- 
ness commend him to my reverence, my con- 
fidence, my love. He belongs to God. He 



42 Heavenwards 

has always been faithful to God. God loves 
him with a singular affection. Because of 
his nearness and dearness to God, I must rev- 
erence and love him. 

Angel — What are these high and holy 
servants of His, one of whom God has ap- 
pointed to serve me ? They are beings made • 
in His own image and likeness, and by reason 
of their purely spiritual nature they resemble 
Him more nearly than do any others among 
His creatures. In their gifts natural and 
supernatural they are immeasurably superior 
to us. ^' I saw another Angel come down 
from heaven having great power, and the 
earth was enlightened with his glory." ( Apoc. 
1 8.) By the side of their knowledge of the 
natural world and their control over it, our 
knowledge and power dwindle into insignifi- 
cance. Compared with their supernatural In- 
sight into the mysteries of God's dealings 
with His creatures, all our light is darkness 
indeed. 

Yet these noble and glorious beings are our 
brethren, children of the same Father in 
Heaven, united by ties of the tenderest af- 
fection to those In whom they see their future 
companions. And one of them Is deputed to 
be my constant attendant, guardian, teacher, 
defender, intercessor, brother, and friend. 

fVho shall go before thee — My Angel Is 



" / Send My Angel " 43 

truly my servant to prepare my way, to fore- 
see occasions of danger and opportunities of 
merit, to provide me with the light, strength, 
succour, and consolation I need. Always at 
hand, always ready, he holds himself at my 
disposal every hour of the day and night. 
Where shall I find a servant so devoted, so 
joyous in his service as this prince of the 
Heavenly Court! 

And keep thee in thy journey — If I could 
only bear in mind that I am a traveller, hur- 
rying through this world which fascinates and 
engrosses me, to another world in which I 
am to live for ever ! My path is beset with 
perils, from enemies deadly and cunning, 
from the false maxims, evil example, allur- 
ing pleasures that incite me to evil, from ^liiy 
own corrupt inclinations and passions more 
dangerous than all the rest. Amid all these 
obstacles my Angel is to keep me that my feet 
may not swerve from the narrow way, that 
I may not be overthrown by violence nor de- 
ceived by craft. 

. . . to the guardian of my steps 
I turned me, like the child who always runs 
Thither for succour, where he trusteth most.^ 

And bring thee into the place that I have 
prepared. — Oh what joy for him and for me 

1 Paradise, Canto XXII. Dante. 



44 Heavenwards 

when he brings me in safety — to what? This 
God Himself cannot tell me ; eye has not seen 
nor ear heard nor my heart imagined what 
awaits me there. All He can tell me about 
it is that it is Hrs preparation for me: 
'' Come, blessed of My Father, possess the 
kingdom prepared for you from the founda- 
tion of the world." 

When we go to stay with a friend, we find 
our room telling in every direction of the 
mindfulness of one who knows us well — 
flowers, pictures, books, birds even, all our 
tastes have been consulted and provided for, 
nothing has been forgotten that may make us 
feel at home. So will it be in Heaven. He 
who knows what I need for satisfying to the 
full my capacity for happiness, for employing 
with full activity and delight every faculty of 
soul and body, has prepared this for me. All 
the Omnipotence and Wisdom of the Creator, 
all the tenderness of the most loving of fa- 
thers, all the insight and solicitude of a 
mother, all the love and providence of 
brother, benefactor, friend — all this has from 
eternity gone to the preparation in the Heav- 
enly mansions of my appointed place. 

And now what charge does God give me 
as to the guide He has appointed to bring 
me thither ? 



'' I Send My Angel '' 45 

Take notice of him — Could He ask less! 
Yet have I done this hitherto? What notice 
do I take of my Angel Keeper? How often 
do I give him a thought of gratitude for his 
faithful service and deliverance from dangers 
to soul and body? How often have I re- 
course to him in temptation or perplexity? 
Have I ever, in return for his unselfish devo- 
tion to me, congratulated him on his dignity 
and holiness and happiness? O my Good 
Angel, how little notice have I taken of thee 
in the past ! 

And hear his voice — ^The importance of 
this charge I cannot overrate. I can do no 
good of myself, yet God will not bring me 
to Heaven without myself. The work of my 
salvation is to be done betwixt Himself and 
me. His part is to move me by His inspira- 
tions to do what He requires of me ; my part 
is to give heed to His Will, and with His 
help to carry it into effect. My Guardian 
Angel has to communicate His Will to me 
and help me to its accomplishment. Many 
times every day — unless my spiritual senses 
are dulled for want of use — I shall find him 
urging me to what is good, checking me when 
I am solicited to evil, reproving me when I 
have gone astray. It is by heeding the in- 
spirations of God, prompting and warning 
them, that the elect will save their souls ; con- 



46 Heavenwards 

tempt of these inspirations will be the ruin 
of those who perish. How docile I must be 
to my good Angel, how ready to hear his 
voice and to obey him ! 

And do not think him one to he contemned: 
— ^The regard that God shows for His crea- 
tures, more especially His intelligent crea- 
tures, is a sweet and wonderful mystery: 
*' Thou being Master of power . . . with 
great reverence disposest of us." (Wisd. 
12.) Quite marvellous is the reverence with 
which He speaks of His Angels. Their glory 
is to be superadded to His own on the Last 
tremendous Day *' when the Son of Man 
shall come in His majesty and all the Angels 
with Him." (S. Matth. 25.) St. Luke says 
" when He shall come in His majesty and 
that of His Father, and of the holy Angels." 
(S. Luke 9.) "Whoever shall confess Me 
before men, him shall the Son of Man con- 
fess before the Angels of God." (S. Luke 
12.) ''I charge thee before God and Christ 
Jesus and the elect Angels," (L Tim. 5.) are 
the solemn words of St. Paul. 

No, indeed, I may not think my Angel one 
to be contemned. What is it to contemn ? It 
is to slight, to pass by with disdain or disre- 
spect. Does my Angel feel himself dishon- 
oured in any of these particulars? 

For he will not forgive when thou hast 



'' I Send My Angel '' 47 

sinned, — ^What! God forgives us so often 
and so readily, and do His Angels withhold 
forgiveness or follow tardily where He leads? 
Surely not, when they fill all Heaven with 
their rejoicing upon one sinner doing pen- 
ance. But He would bring home to us with 
startling force that characteristic of the Holy 
Angels so prominent throughout Scripture — 
their absolute devotion to God and the loyal- 
ty with which they make His cause their own. 
*' Say not before the Angel : There is no Prov- 
idence." (Eccles. 5.) ''And forthwith an 
Angel of the Lord struck him (Herod) be- 
cause he had not given the honour to God." 
(Acts 12.) 

But if thou wilt hear his voice, and do all 
that I speak, I will be an enemy to thy ene- 
mies, and will afflict them that afflict thee. — 
Hear his voice and do all that / speak. God 
speaks to me in my Angel's voice — a motive 
for prompt obedience and trust. How safe 
and happy I shall be if, like the Holy Angels, 
I am loyal always to my Creator and Lord 
and make His interests my own. My ene- 
mies He will make His enemies, and them 
that afflict me He will afflict. 

See that you despise not one of these little 
ones, — When anyone high in authority says 
to us : '' See that you do not " this or that, we 
understand that a grave command is imposed 



48 Heavenwards 

upon us. Our Lord's charge to us here is 
very solemn. He has nothing more at heart 
than the welfare of these little ones who be- 
lieve in Him, and He will not suffer injury to 
them to go unpunished. To be an occasion 
of harm to a child by bad example, neglect, 
carelessness as to its companions, amusements, 
books, and the like, is to incur the anger of 
Its zealous Guardian who will not fail to 
denounce before God one who has hurt his 
little charge. Must we not be careful to 
have as friends not as enemies those who 
always behold the Face of God in Heaven and 
according to our deeds will be our accusers 
or our intercessors with Him! 



VIII 




"l SEND MY ANGEL "'^ 



^ITH all reverence I may use 
these words and the ministry 
of my Good Angel to give to 
God a worship and service far 
beyond the scope of my own powers. 

If I have important business on hand which 
I cannot despatch myself, I employ an agent, 
get some one with influence to interest him- 
self in it, try to secure the help of a persona 
grata at headquarters — ^why should I not 
show a like diligence in affairs that are be- 
yond the domain of sense ? 

As God's creature I must be concerned in 
all that affects His glory. " Thy Kingdom 
come," is on my lips continually, and as, op- 
pressed by the stifling atmosphere of this 
world, I look up to Heaven, my wish must 
often be that I could give to God here and 
now the praise and service He will have from 
me one day. My place there may be empty 
for very many years yet — must I wait till I 

49 



50 Heavenwards 

reach it before I can serve Him as I desire? 
Why ? when I have one at hand only too glad 
to be my messenger thither and to act in my 
name. His spotless presence and perfect 
praise are always welcome there; he will 
adore and give thanks for me — I will send 
my Angel. 

As a member of the human family I must 
be keenly interested in whatever concerns its 
welfare. Wherever my brethren are to be 
found, in Heaven, in Purgatory, or still in 
probation here, I have duties towards them, 
and who can help me to discharge these duties 
like my Guardian Angel? 

To our Lady and to my Patrons and 
friends of whom I have so many in Heaven, 
he will take my congratulations and peti- 
tions : 

To the Holy Waiting Souls he will bear 
the alms I give him for distribution among 
them — Masses, Communions, Indulgences, 
good works of various kinds, all of which 
will bring them relief and shorten their time 
of suffering. 

To the forsaken Souls, forgotten by their 
nearest and dearest, the multitudes of whom 
no one thinks on earth — I will send my 
Angel: 

To those near and dear to me, to whom 
I am bound still by the tenderest ties and 



" I Send My Angel " 51 

duties, who look to me for help in their dire 
need and distress — I will send my Angel: 

To the eager Soul nearest Heaven, to the 
Soul that has longest to wait, to the Soul that 
suffers most, to those who may be there on 
my account — to all these, with the help I 
can so easily procure them — / will send my 
Angel: 

To aid the cause of Christ on earth, to en- 
lighten those who control the destinies of the 
Church and of my country — I will send my 
Angel: 

To strengthen the hands of priests, to re- 
move obstacles and dangers from their path, 
to preserve them as the salt of the earth frona 
taint or corruption — / will send my Angel: 

To neutralise evil influence everywhere, 
especially before the unsuspecting eyes of the 
young, to open the eyes of those who are 
working with the spirits of evil for the ruin 
of the little ones — I will send my Angel: 

To the slums of great and so-called Christ- 
ian cities, to the densely populated regions of 
pagan lands, to the ignorant who need in- 
struction, to the proudly wise and self-suffi- 
cient who need merciful humiliation, to the 
poor, the unsuccessful, the downtrodden, the 
despairing, the little children — I will send my 
Angel: 

To the haunts of business and of amuse- 



52 Heavenwards 

ment where harm in many forms may lurk, 
to the lonely sick in hospitals, to schoolrooms 
and to prisons, to the busy streets, to the fish- 
ing boats out at sea — everywhere bearing the 
saving inspirations of God, / will send my 
Angel. 

There will be thousands of unsanctified 
deathbeds in the world to-night, many within 
call of a priest, many where no foot of priest 
has ever trod; the Angels there are striving 
with the spirits of darkness for the departing 
souls, too often, alas! with little or no co- 
operation from them or from surrounding 
friends. To help these zealous Guardians at 
this last decisive hour, to bring them such 
succour as will ensure the victory to grace and 
enable them to present their charges with joy 
before the Judgement seat of Christ — I send 
my Angel: 

Wherever there will be sudden death to- 
day by land or sea, I will send my Angel, 
that at his prayer grace may be swifter still 
and hinder death however sudden from being 
unprepared. 

When I find myself with others in a room, 
a shop, a railway carriage, a place of enter- 
tainment, I will accustom myself to call to 
mind the Angels there. The remembrance 
will be at once a protection, a check, a re- 
source, an inspiration, a refreshment, a means 



'' I Send My Angel " 53 

of union with God. I am not likely to in- 
dulge in illnatured gossip or criticism or to 
let the trivialities of life wholly monopolise 
the conversation when I remember who are 
listening — and recording. As I pass people 
in the streets, I will salute their Angels, so 
little thought of, so often saddened by our 
forgetfulness of God and our offences against 
Him. 

In my relations with the poor and the suf- 
fering, and above all with little children, I 
will recollect the vigilance of their Angels and 
take heed lest word or deed of mine should 
be to any an occasion of harm. 

When I have a decision of any importance 
to make, advice to give as to a step which 
cannot be retraced, a difficult interview to 
face, I will commend it to my Angel and to 
the Angels of those with whom I have to 
deal. When I find no means of reaching a 
soul which I earnestly desire to help, I will 
make friends with its Angel. 

Wherever evil example, evil words, evil 
writing, are working ruin to souls; wherever 
false principles are being propagated, and 
pride of intellect, worldliness, love of plea- 
sure, selfishness in any of its many forms, 
are choking up the avenues of grace ; where- 
ever tender ties are hindering the sacrifice for 
which grace calls, or souls are being lured 



54 Heavenwards 

by the prospect of temporal advantage to ex- 
change the next world for this, eternal hap- 
piness hereafter for a good time now ; where- 
ever in short there is need of body or soul on 
the wide earth to-day — there, to plead, to 
enlighten and strengthen, to win the great 
mercies of God and His efficacious grace, I 
pray the Holy Angels of God to be. And 
there, to help forward the interests of God 
and of souls — I send my Angel. 




IX 

THE BOOK OF LIFE 
'Whose names are in the book of life/'' (Philip. 4.) 

>HAT excitement there is on the 
part of candidates and parents 
and teachers and friends on the 
morning when the examination 
results come out ! What rushing to the papers, 
what eager scanning of the lists for the ex- 
pected names! If these have earned Dis- 
tinctions, if they appear in the Honours Lists, 
what jubilation there is all round ! Congratu- 
lations fly over the world, and within their 
own little circle the names of those who have 
thus distinguished themselves are in every 
mouth. Where a pass only has been ob- 
tained, satisfaction takes a somewhat milder 
form, but, after all, the goal has been reached, 
efforts and toil have been rewarded, there is 
abundant cause for rejoicing still. 

But what about the names that do not ap- 
pear, the names that loving eyes seek again 
and again, hoping against hope — ^what about 
the failures? Perhaps the less said about 
these the better. Kind words and condo- 

55 



56 Heavenwards 

lences only hurt, excuses fall flat, the only 
consolation, and that a doubtful one, is the 
hope of better success next time. 

The contrast — seen maybe in the same 
home — sets one thinking of another exami- 
nation, of other successes, and alas ! of other 
failures. Of that final examination to which 
we must all come, St. John says: *' And I saw 
the dead, great and small, standing in the 
presence of the throne, and the books were 
opened : and another book was opened, which 
is the book of life, and the dead were judged 
by those things which were written in the 
books, according to their works." ( Apoc. 20. ) 

Two books only, and the names of all, 
great and small, entered in one or other! 
Where will mine be? 

Who dreams of presenting himself for ex- 
amination without careful preparation, or 
supposes that one can dawdle through the 
year and come off with Honours by making 
a dash for them at the end? If we listen to 
the comments of teachers on successful and 
unsuccessful candidates, we shall find that 
their prophecies of success or failure are based 
on steady work in one case and on idleness 
or inertness in the other. Talent of course 
goes for much, but not for everything, as 
many are apt to suppose ; there must be stren- 



The Booh of Life 57 

uous persevering labour if success is to be 
achieved. 

Are the conditions different in the work of 
our salvation ? No. Heaven does not come 
to us as a matter of course, it has to be won 
by resolution and effort. But the effort is not 
beyond our strength. Nay, in many respects 
less is required to gain everlasting happiness 
than to secure the poor prizes of this life. 
For success here, a certain amount of talent 
is necessary. Goodwill alone avails nothing. 
The greater number of men could not pass a 
preliminary examination to save their life. 
But to succeed in the one thing necessary, 
goodwill, i. e., genuine goodwill which ac- 
cepts the conditions and takes the means — 
this is everything. 

Again: the examinees of this world are 
kept in ignorance, if not of the matter of ex- 
amination, at least of the actual questions, 
until the eventful hour arrives. But we know 
all our life through what will be matter for 
judgement — the Commandments of God and 
of the Church, and the duties of our state; 
every thought, word, and deed from the use 
of reason to our latest breath; the graces we 
have received and our correspondence; the 
stewardship confided to us and our discharge 
of its responsibilities. All this we know, and 
for all this we can make direct and distinct 



68 Heavenwards 

preparation hour by hour. Moreover, we can 
rectify mistakes and improve our prospects 
in a marvellous manner. Prayer, frequent 
and fervent recourse to the Sacraments, exam- 
ination of conscience, direction, retreats, ser- 
mons, spiritual reading, not only keep our 
aim steadily before us, but make good our 
losses and sustain our energy to the end. 

Another advantage we have over the can- 
didates in the examination room is the direct 
power we have of controlling results. They 
would hardly dream of making up to the ex- 
aminers with a view to obtaining a favourable 
verdict on their papers. We may approach 
our Judge as often as we will, and in the clos- 
est and most intimate intercourse of friend- 
ship transact with Him the business on which 
our future depends. We may secure His 
favour, we may prevail on Him to overlook 
our deficiencies, we may dictate to Him our 
sentence. 

Nor is there any fear of being ousted by 
rivals as in competitive examinations here; 
we may aim confidently at the highest; dis- 
tinctions and honours to satisfy the noblest 
ambition may be ours — if we will. 

Only — ^we have but one chance. If we 
succeed, all will be well with us through the 
countless ages of eternity. We shall never 
be put to another test, the results of our work 



The Book of Life 59 

will endure for ever. If we fail, there is no 
trying again, no profiting by mistakes. We 
have the opportunity now, as long as life 
shall last; we have conditions more favour- 
able than those of millions around us; we 
have every help within the reach of prayer; 
we have time and grace at our disposal. But 
these will not be ours much longer. '' Work 
while it is day," we are told, " the night com- 
eth when no man can work." (S. John 9.) 
And the night may fall suddenly. '* Watch," 
says our Blessed Lord, " for you know not 
the day nor the hour." (S. Matth. 25.) 
" And what I say to you I say to all : Watch." 
(S. Mark 13.) We cannot afford to hazard 
results ; everything depends upon being ready 
when He calls. 

And to what does He call when the labour 
of this short life is done ? 

To the holy City, the new Jerusalem, 
whose foundations are of precious stones and 
the streets of pure gold, as it were transpar- 
ent glass, and the twelve gates are twelve 
pearls, where the Lord God is the Temple 
and the Lamb is the lamp thereof: to that 
Kingdom and Home prepared for us from 
the foundation of the world, of which St. John 
says: " There shall not enter into it anything 
defiled . . . but they that are written in 
the book of life of the Lamb." (Apoc. 21.) 



X 



** CROOKED WAYS " 



HE crowds that flocked to the 
IM^Ka^^ preaching of St. John Baptist had 
HRf^U four things to do to prepare for 
^ss^S^ the coming Messiah. They were 
to bring down every mountain and hill, to fill 
up the valleys, to make the crooked ways 
straight and the rough ways plain. The 
same preparation is expected of us, and for 
us, as for the Jews, the main hindrances are 
the crooked ways. 

** Make straight the paths of our God," 
(Isaias 40.) Isaias said long ago. Our Lord 
cannot get on with a soul given to crooked- 
ness. He is not at home with it nor it with 
Him. Perhaps some of us know the uncom- 
fortable feeling of talking to one whom we 
are trying to trick or think we have tricked. 
Anything like free and pleasant conversation 
is out of the question, the sooner the inter- 
view comes to an end the better. So is it 
with us when we are not honest with God, 
when we are conscious of something being 
wrong between ourselves and Him which we 

60 



''Crooked Ways'' 61 

have no intention of putting right, or of some- 
thing He is asking of us that we will not give 
Him — a bad habit to be broken, a dangerous 
pleasure to be sacrificed, a growing intimacy 
to be checked. Anything else He may de- 
mand, but our Agag must be spared. And 
He persists, and gradually a wall comes be- 
tween us and Him and joy goes out of His 
service, for ^' who hath resisted Him and had 
peace? " (Job 9.) Our confessions become 
troubled; at Mass and Communion we are ill 
at ease, glad after a few uncomfortable pray- 
ers to hurry out of Church as if the atmos- 
phere there oppressed us. 

The reason why some of us find our inter- 
course with God habitually difficult may be 
that we hardly aim at anything more than a 
lip-service, and even in this there is unreality. 
We get into the way of saying prayers we do 
not mean and never shall mean. Do we really 
wish we could shed tears of blood over our 
sins, or that our heart could be torn from our 
body and purified in fiercest fire from all its 
dross? If we do, well and good, if we do 
not, why say so? Are we prepared to have 
our Purgatory in this world? If not, why 
pray for it? 

What is the use of our protesting that we 
would die a thousand deaths for our Lord, 
when we will not go across the street for 



62 Heavenwards 

daily Mass, and again this morning broke our 
resolution to rise at the appointed time? 
Surely, in time of prayer at least we should 
be real; any affectation then is so ridiculously 
out of place that it must shut the gates of 
Heaven against us. No matter what we are, 
if we come to prayer as we are^ we shall 
be welcome. The Pharisee would have been 
justified like the publican if, instead of re- 
counting his good deeds, he had accused him- 
self of the pride and ostentation which made 
him odious in the sight of God. All through 
the Scriptures we find straightforwardness 
with God accepted and rewarded, but crooked 
ways and *' lying lips an abomination to the 
Lord." (Prov. 12.) '* Remove from thee 
a froward mouth ... let thy eyes look 
straight on . . . make straight the paths for 
thy feet . . . decline not to the right hand 
nor to the left." (Prov. 4.) "A heart that 
goeth two ways shall not have success." 
(Ecclus. 3.) 

" Every proud man is an abomination to 
the Lord," (Prov. 16.) precisely because of 
his untruthfulness, for " pride was not made 
for man." (Ecclus. 10.) Of himself he is 
and has nothing; all that he has and is he has 
received. If he glories in himself as if he had 
not received, (L Cor. 4.) how should he 
not be hateful to the God of truth! ''If 



''Crooked Ways'' 63 

anyone is a little one let him come to Me," 
(Prov. 9.) says the Truth. Such alone are 
invited. To whatever wisdom or maturity 
we have attained, we must all go to Him 
with the candour of little children, for 
His ^' communication is with the simple." 
(Prov. 3.) 

Yet we must not keep aloof because of a 
feeling of insincerity in our dealings with 
Him, but take this like every other form of 
disease to our Heavenly Physician. Some 
people find themselves helplessly entangled 
in crooked ways and despair of ever getting 
free. We must not despair. Every trouble 
of mind and conscience we may take confi- 
dently to our God, all the subtleties of the 
heart which " is perverse above all things and 
unsearchable," (Jerem. 17.) an enigma to 
all but Him who made it. 

In the days of our self-delusion we believed 
ourselves irreproachable in one respect at 
least — ^we were genuine, straightforward, up- 
right, above crooked dealings with God or 
man. Alas! alas! for our good opinion of 
ourselves, self-knowledge came with time 
and discovered to our humiliation and distress 
the extent to which we are made up, the 
amount of paint with which we presume to 
come masquerading before the Divine Ma- 
jesty. So far from being the guileless Israel- 



64 Heavenwards 

ites we had imagined, we have to plead guilty 
to a host of little insincerities not only in our 
intercourse with those about us but in our 
dealings with God himself. 

When this is the result of frailty rather 
than of perversity, it will not raise a barrier 
between us and Him, and we should make a 
grave mistake were we to treat ourselves as 
some parents and teachers are wont to treat 
untruthful children. Insincerity in their eyes, 
denotes such depravity in the poor little de- 
linquents, that it cannot be denounced too 
strongly or punished too severely. Yet it is 
a fault to which the generality of children are 
prone, and the horror and indignation It pro- 
vokes may easily, by creating a false con- 
science, do more harm than the fault Itself. 
A lie of excuse is in Itself, and apart from the 
Injury It may do to another, a venial sin. If 
by exaggerated language a timid child Is led 
to believe it mortal, terrible results may fol- 
low. Neither must we lead a child to suppose 
that untruthful habits have rendered it so 
contemptible that all confidence has been for- 
feited for ever; rather must we encourage it 
by the reminder that this Is but one of the 
faults to which we are all subject and that it 
can be conquered like all the rest. 

This encouragement we must extend on 
ourselves when — long after we have left 



"Crooked Ways'' 65 

childhood behind us — ^we begin to discover 
our own crooked ways. Instead of visit- 
ing upon ourselves the indignation we have 
bestowed on others, it will be more prof- 
itable to accept the revelation without dis- 
turbance, and to feel, perhaps, a certain sym- 
pathy for the little trembling children in 
whom a habit of untruthfulness is so often 
fostered by cross-examination and severity. 
Once we take ourselves honestly in hand, the 
tricky methods to which we resort in order 
to gain our ends, are apt to be flashed upon 
us by grace to an extent which at first is not 
humbling only but disconcerting. Nature 
will without difficulty own to pride, anger, 
sloth even, but hardly to insincerity, and 
shrinks from being brought face to face with 
what is the direct reversal of its ideal self. 
It takes time and the quiet humility that grows 
as the process of self-knowledge advances, to 
be able to see without perturbation the ugli- 
ness with which we are confronted, to abase 
ourselves for it before God — and then, like 
Queen Candace's eunuch, go on our way re- 
joicing. 

Trust in our Heavenly Father deepens 
with the truthfulness that, undismayed by 
continual lapses, takes to Him again and 
again one of the humiliating of the infirm- 
ities by ivhich our poor nature is beset. And 



66 Heavenwards 

how truthfulness and trust gain His Heart 
we learn from the story of the woman who 
pressed through the crowd to touch the hem 
of our Lord's garment, saying to herself: 
*' If I shall touch only His garment I shall 
be healed." She came behind Him. She was 
afraid to be seen. He might be displeased at 
her boldness. But, finding He knew that 
virtue had gone out from Him and that she 
could not be hid, she came trembling and fell 
down at His feet, '^ and told Him all the 
truth." 

This is what He loves — that we should 
fearlessly come to Him and tell Him all the 
truth about ourselves. It may be that there 
is nothing good to tell, that the truth is some- 
thing we are very much ashamed of. No 
matter, we may trust it all to Him who is so 
kind, so tender, so ready to excuse when He 
can, and to forgive always. He will never 
upbraid us either in this world or the next 
with what we have told Him in confidence 
and trusted to Him by our own free act. 
What it is to have a friend to whom we can 
tell " all the truth," and what a joy that that 
Friend is our Judge ! 

More than half our difficulties in prayer 
come from our not being quite honest with our 
Lord, not telling Him all the truth about our- 
selves. If we were to mend in this respect, 



"Crooked Ways'' 67 

and cultivate the habit of owning to Him 
quite simply any fault our conscience has 
against us, we should find the barrier that 
parts Him from us breaking down. The 
constraint and awkwardness would go and 
we should be at our ease with Him. For 
so He has promised: ''You shall know the 
truth and the truth shall make you free." 
(S. John 8.) 



XI 

MEDIOCRITY versus EXCELLENCE 

"Be zealous for the better gifts. And I show unto you yet a more 
excellent way." (I. Cor. 12.) 



1 
i 



UST we take It for granted that 
the practice of our faith on the 
low level line is the road to Hea- 
ven for us? Does the aim to get 
'' just inside the door " commend itself to us 
as safe, as complying with St. Paul's injunc- 
tion: " so run that you may obtain," (I. Cor. 
9.) as showing a grasp of the meaning of our 
Lord's words: *' the Kingdom of Heaven 
suffereth violence and the violent bear it 
away"? (S. Matth. ii.) 

St. Augustine before his conversion had 
earnest longings for better things, but bad 
habits and the fear of a hard struggle with 
himself held him back. One day he came 
upon a book which told of the conflicts and 
victories of the Saints. He read it. He pon- 
dered it. Conscience and grace spoke loud: 
his hour was come. The example of so many, 
weak like himself — men, women, youths, 
maidens, mere children, impressed him pro- 

68 



Mediocrity versus Excellence 69 

foundly and he cried out: ** These have over- 
come themselves and secured the Kingdom 
of Heaven — and why not I ? '' He made his 
resolution ; he broke finally with the past ; he 
kept continually before him the powerful 
stimulus of example ; he saw the Saints as they 
passed beneath the heavenly portals turn 
round and beckon to him and — he became a 
Saint ! 

That procession of holy ones never ceases ; 
it is as full and varied and wonderful in our 
own days as in St. Augustine's. Young and 
old of every rank of life are there, differing 
in character, circumstances, and education, in 
their gifts and their graces and their trials; 
some innocent, others penitents ; some coming 
to the service of God at the third hour, some 
at the eleventh, but all alike in the strong 
will to give to God their best, to consider, 
not what they are bound to do for Him, but 
what they may do. They look at themselves, 
soul and body, and they choose to labour first 
for the interests of the soul, and to compel 
the body, whether it will or not, so to behave 
that it shall help not harm the soul. They 
look at Time, they look at Eternity, and they 
choose to forego often and resolutely '* the 
good things that are present" (Wisd. 2.) 
lest they should forfeit those that are to come. 
They look at the Crucifix, at the widespread 



70 Heavenwards 

arms, the parched lips, the thorn-crowned 
head, the pierced hands and feet; they look 
into the Soul and see Its desolation and Its 
agony; and they resolve that their life shall 
be — not, indeed, an adequate return for love 
such as this, but the best return they can make. 
They will live for Him, not for themselves; 
they were redeemed at the same price as the 
Saints, they will prove their gratitude and 
love like the Saints. 

The Crucifix stands beside the path of each 
one of us as we go through life. It speaks, 
not of an act done long ago for mankind as 
a whole, but of Christ's personal love and 
sacrifice of Himself for each single soul, and 
of the return for such love and sacrifice for 
which each single soul is responsible. " All 
you who pass by the way attend and see." 
(Lament, i.) It is an appeal to us one by 
one. It is an appeal to me during my short 
time of life here, to make such return as I 
may to Him who has loved me like this. 

Some see that pleading Form and simply 
pass by. Others look and are touched for 
the moment, and go their way, and in the 
business or pleasure or excitement or cares of 
this life forget Christ Crucified. 

And there are those who pause, and look 
long and earnestly ; come back and look again 
and yet again, till at last the lesson begins 



Mediocrity versus Excellence 71 

to be learnt, the personal love of Christ for 
them individually and their personal debt to 
Him comes home to them; they understand 
now the justice and the urgency of the great 
Commandment: "Thou shalt love the Lord 
thy God with thy whole heart, and with thy 
whole soul, and with all thy mind, and with 
all thy strength," and their life's work and 
joy henceforth is to comply with it. 

What is my answer to that appeal? It is 
for me He hangs ther^ ; my sins that agony is 
expiating; my graces here, my glory by and 
bye are being won at this tremendous price. 
*' He loved me and delivered Himself for 
me." (Galat. 2.) And why? What am I 
to Him that He should love me so? What 
have I done to deserve such love ? What am 
I doing, what must I do henceforth to make 
Him the return I ought? 

So has all eminent service of God begun. 
God touches the soul with His grace ; the soul 
responds. God urges us to follow, not lan- 
guidly but strenuously the traces of those 
whose feet were in His footprints, who made 
His Life their study and example, whose 
main desire and aim in life was to return 
Him love for love. They look back upon us 
and try to stir us to emulation: *' I beseech 
you," they cry to us one and all, " be fol- 
lowers of me as I am of Christ." (L Cor. 



72 Heavenwards 

4.) ^* And make haste, make haste for the 
time is short.'' 

There are times at least when we hear their 
voice; when we look wistfully at the Saints 
and wonder why we who have the same obli- 
gation and inducements to serve God faith- 
fully and to love Him fervently, should be 
content with so poor a service and so half- 
hearted a love. 

** But what is the use," some of us may say, 
'^ of taking note of aspirations which come to 
nothing? Who would have patience with or 
put faith in desires so inconstant as ours? 
We hesitate to say to-day what we know our 
acts will belie to-morrow. We wonder how 
the Saints contrived to keep themselves al- 
ways at white heat." 

Nowhere are we told that they did. They 
certainly had their bad days, aye, and weeks 
and months and years, like us. But they 
battled with discouragement and pushed on 
in spite of weariness and disgust. By trust- 
ing in Him who makes all things work to- 
gether for the good of those who love Him, 
they came to be independent of moods and 
tenses. They took from His hand all sea- 
sons as they came — the brightness of one day 
with its hopes and desires, the dulness of 
weeks that followed; then a spell of sunshine 
perhaps, then more mist and frost. It was 



Mediocrity versus Excellence 73 

the intercourse with God, easy at times, dis- 
tressingly hard at others, but persevered in 
always and never allowed to depend on the 
humour of the hour, that kept them up, 
strengthened their good desires, won grace 
for the time of need, and made recourse to 
God and union with God natural to them at 
last as the air they breathed. 

If like them we learn to confide to Him all 
the secrets of our wistful but inconstant hearts, 
we shall find that little by little will come the 
courage to take ourselves honestly in hand, 
to search out and root out our bad habits, to 
do violence to the Kingdom of Heaven and 
like the Saints bear it away. Prayer is the 
great lever of the spiritual life, and the Sac- 
raments are a storehouse of grace that is 
simply inexhaustible. Nothing can resist 
them, neither bad habits, nor the force of 
temptation, nor long indifference, nor even 
grievous falls. By their means good desires 
grow strong enough to bear fruit, good habits 
are formed and matured, and the love of God 
begins to take full possession of the soul. 
Then gifts and service and sacrifice — the ways 
in which true love shows itself — will not be 
wanting. Prayer now will be, not a simple 
duty with its strait and well-defined limits, 
but the very breath of life, bringing about 
that habitual union with God which makes 



74 Heavenwards 

His life and action flow into our acts and in 
a sense deify them. What is to hinder us 
from making this experience our own ? 

We come across lives in which exceptional 
advantages — talents, education, means, influ- 
ence — have been recklessly thrown away or 
misused. And on the other hand, we see 
energy and perseverance triumphing over ad- 
verse circumstances, making the most of every 
chance and achieving the most brilliant suc- 
cess. The same, but with a more momentous 
issue, shall we see in innumerable instances 
when we all stand " revealed before the 
Judgement seat of Christ." (II. Cor. 5.) 
Here, noble work has been done with meagre 
gifts and opportunities. There, reckless waste 
of grace has brought ruin irreparable on those 
who ought to be high up in the Kingdom of 
God. 

Why not forestall the experiences of that 
Day and learn its lessons while we may profit 
by them! As Catholics we have received 
much, and much will be expected of us. We 
own as brothers and sisters that glorious mul- 
titude who have understood the meaning of 
life and have used it for the purpose for which 
it was given. Have we no ambition to show 
ourselves worthy of them? They were like 
us ; they had their difficulties and weaknesses, 
more, very many of them, than our share of 



Mediocrity versus Excellence 75 

trial. And they have come victors out of it 
all! They have smoothed the way for our 
feet; they have left us their example, their 
struggles, their mistakes even, for our help 
and encouragement. St. Teresa dallied with 
grace for twenty years before she sprang for- 
ward and attained the perfection to which she 
was called. 

*' Then I may wait," some one says, " and 
in twenty years a great grace may come to 
me. 

That we may not say. We cannot pre- 
sume on the patience of God. He is in no 
way beholden to us that He should wait at 
our door till it suits us to open. For a while 
He stands and knocks; then, if we do not 
open to Him He passes on and seeks hos- 
pitality elsewhere. '* Be not deceived, God is 
not mocked." (Galat. 6.) He offers us 
His grace now and time wherein to use it, as 
He offered it to the young man who went 
away sorrowful, and to the thieves on Cal- 
vary. One of these seized his opportunity 
and is a Saint in Heaven. Of the other we 
only know that he missed the same oppor- 
tunity, and so died. 

Why should we be content with medi- 
ocrity when sanctity is within our reach? 
Under my hand I have the materials of sanc- 
tity. Every life provides them. Numbers 



76 Heavenwards 

in circumstances like my own are using 
these materials splendidly — why, oh why 
not I! 

It is not high states of prayer, visions, 
ecstasies, miraculous gifts that are wanted, 
but such prayer as with God's help I can 
make, such virtues as I have daily occasions 
of practising, such fidelity to grace, and re- 
ception of the Sacraments, and sanctification 
of daily duties and daily trials as my life 
affords. 

Some states, it is true, offer greater facili- 
ties for sanctification than others, and for that 
reason they are chosen. But it would be a 
grievous mistake to suppose that any lawful 
state is devoid of them. If the choice is open 
to me, I should choose that which after prayer 
I shall judge from my own knowledge of my- 
self to be the best for me. If my state is al- 
ready fixed, I have but to use the abundant 
means of sanctification its duties place within 
my reach. I need not go into a religious 
house to become a Saint. I need not cut my- 
self off from intercourse with others, but in 
that very intercourse find my opportunities. 
It is not occasions that are wanting anywhere 
but the will to profit by them. The wise 
amongst us do profit. How many busy moth- 
ers at every one's beck and call from morning 
till night, how many sick in the hospitals, 



Mediocrity versus Eoocellence 77 

how many of the young with life before them 
and of the aged who have outlived their work 
and interests here, are using their opportuni- 
ties grandly and turning all into merit. In 
stately homes, in the slums, in multitudes of 
earth's obscure places, God is getting superb 
service from His Saints of to-day. A few 
years hence, and one here and there will be 
raised by the Church to her altars for the 
homage and encouragement of their brethren. 
Then those who lived by their side will come 
forward and bear witness to the saintly lives 
they saw but did not imitate. 

And why did they not imitate? *' Because 
of the labour that must be gone through in 
the conflict," A'Kempis tells us. Yet that 
labour, " momentary and light " (II. Cor. 4) 
purchases an eternity of rest and joy in the 
presence of God. And even now it has its 
reward in the knowledge that one soul aiming 
at a perfect service gives more glory to God 
than a multitude who are content with medi- 
ocrity, and wins a nearness to Him the hap- 
piness of which far outweighs any pains by 
which it has been earned. 

Shall we not surrender ourselves to grace? 
There is yet time. Prayer and patience and 
persevering effort to follow the lead of the 
Holy Spirit will ensure that service and win 
that reward. 



78 Heavenwards 

Be docile to thine unseen Guide, 
Love Him as He loves thee, 

Time and obedience are enough, 
And thou a Saint shalt be.^ 



A Priest's Dream ^ 

The doctor said I could not live till morn- 
ing. I lay in a lethargy, to all appearance 
dead. Now and again my attendant came in 
to see if I was still living. 

Suddenly, all sense of pain left me. I 
found myself encompassed with the thickest 
darkness, a darkness that was appalling. 
After a while a light began to break in upon 
me, seemed to approach me, grew and grew 
till it became a dazzling brightness. In the 
midst I discerned the form of a young man 
of extraordinary beauty, clothed in white. 
Without speaking, he made me a sign to fol- 
low him, and instantly I was transported 
away from earth into limitless space. Stars 
above, below, on every side ; no sun nor moon 
but stars everywhere. I seemed to be travel- 
ling along a high embankment such as the 
railway line runs along at times, but all of 

^ Faber. 

^ The Catechism warns us against giving heed to ''omens, dreams, 
and such like fooleries. " But there is nothing to prevent us heeding 
and profiting by anything which strikes us as more than the nightly 
vagaries of our unguided brain. Cardinal Newman at the age of 
nineteen had a dream which was a help to him to the end of his life. 
And not a few of us have had a like experience. 



Mediocrity versus Excellence 79 

cloud. My Angel Guardian, for such I un- 
derstood him to be, led me on in silence. He 
seemed absorbed in thought and disinclined 
to speak. On and on we went till at length 
I ventured to say: ''Where am I going?" 
He answered shortly and as I thought not 
very pleasantly: "To Heaven." 

Presently we came to a vast staircase, im- 
mense in width, higher than the highest of 
mountains and lost at the upper end among 
the clouds. We began to ascend the steep 
steps, my Angel passing on before me. After 
two hours or so spent thus I summoned up 
courage to say : '' How worn these steps are ! " 
He answered in the same laconic manner: 
'' They may well be worn for millions have 
passed this way." 

Again we ascended in silence. At length 
he paused suddenly and turning to me said: 
'' O child, you should have seen the proces- 
sion that passed this way last night, to meet 
and welcome according to his merits a man 
of no account on earth, unlettered, uncouth, 
but held in reverence in Heaven as one who 
has laboured and suffered much for the Lord 
our God. When he came to the staircase you 
are mounting you should have seen how 
Archangels and the highest Princes of Hea- 
ven went down to meet him. He had never 
come in for honours on earth and did not 



80 Heavenwards 

know how to receive them. They bore him 
along in their midst in triumph. As he passed 
on, tens of thousands came forth from Hea- 
ven to show him reverence. They cleared 
a way for him, they bowed down before him, 
they kissed the hem of his garment, whilst 
he, amazed beyond belief, sought to evade the 
marks of their reverent affection. O my 
child, you should have seen that entry into 
Heaven of one who had suffered much for 
God. You should have seen and heard when 
the Son of Man, before His Father and be- 
fore the Angels of God confessed him for 
one of His. You should see now the near- 
ness to the Throne of God that for eternity 
will be his." 

I looked up. The Angel's face was aglow 
with a heavenly enthusiasm; the tones of his 
voice thrilled me through and through. A 
new light broke in upon me. I fell on my 
knees before him: '' Take me back to earth," 
I cried, " get me a little longer span of life, 
that I may sacrifice myself for the love and 
service of God and win nearness to Him in 
the life to come! " 

With this I awoke. I was better. In a 
few weeks I was about again, but — a changed 
man: that dream or vision had altered my 
life. 




XII 

HAIL MARY 

|AIL! a word of reverent saluta- 
tion. Admiration, enthusiasm, 
love, are all contained in it, but 
reverence predominates. It can- 
not be said thoughtfully without the rever- 
ence of the heart passing to the lips. Is this 
beautiful salutation on my lips what it ought 
to be? 

Reverence is at a discount in these days. 
We see less and less of it in each succeeding 
generation, less in children, servants, depend- 
ents generally; less in equals, less in friends, 
less, painfully less, in intercourse with parents 
and with priests — less, worst of all, in our 
dealings with God. 

The free and easy ways with those above 
us now in vogue, have nothing mischievous 
about them, some will say; they are merely 
the outcome of the liberty which the spirit 
of the age grants to all; they imply no want 
of refinement in the mind or of affection in 
the heart, and endanger neither respect nor 
love. 

81 



82 Heavenwards 

Supposing anything could be urged in de- 
fence of the growing want of reverence that 
marks intercourse among ourselves, nothing 
can excuse its absence in our relations wuth 
God. Here it is simply indispensable. It is 
the attitude of every rational creature in His 
Presence, more and more profound in the 
heavenly hierarchies as they approach Him 
more nearly; in the Archangels than in the 
Angels ; deeper yet in the Seraphim ; the high- 
est Angel cannot reach its depths in the soul 
of Mary; the sacred human Soul of Jesus 
is steeped in it, " who in the days of His flesh 
was heard for His reverence." (Heb. 5.) 

How, then, can any other attitude befit us 
or be tolerated in us ! Those who should 
transgress the etiquette of Courts would be 
hustled from the royal presence ! Reverence 
is the essential condition of approach to the 
King of kings. Do we bring it with us always 
when we come to prayer? Are we a fit and 
acceptable companion to our holy and rever- 
ent Angel Guardian when we kneel down to 
pray ? 

The Angels teach us many lessons, none, 
perhaps more impressively than this of rever- 
ence. *' Thousands of thousands minister to 
Him, and ten thousand times a hundred thou- 
sand stand before Him." (Dan. 7.) '' And 
all the angels stood round about the throne 




THE HOLY FAMILY OF NAZARETH 



Hail Mary 83 

. . . and they fell down before the 
throne upon their faces and adored God." 
(Apoc. 6.) 

Next to the throne of God is the throne of 
the Mother of God. After the reverence due 
to Him, is the veneration due to her whose 
titles and prerogatives almost exceed belief — 
Mother of God, Mother of our Creator, Vir- 
gin Mother, Mother of Divine Grace, Queen 
of Angels, Queen of All Saints, Queen of 
Heaven ! ^' Choose," says St. Bernard, speak- 
ing of the Divine Maternity, ** which you will 
most admire, the incomprehensible conde- 
scension of the Son or the incomparable dig- 
nity of the Mother." To her was given 
more grace than to all Angels and men be- 
side. After her divine Son she is the master- 
piece of God's hand, as Mother of all the 
living, the Dispenser of His grace to the 
whole Church and to each individual soul. 
Should we speak with the tongues of men and 
of Angels, we could not duly proclaim her 
dignity nor sound her praise. 

Must we not at least approach her with 
reverence? The tender and familiar love and 
confident recourse to her in every need, which 
as her children we are allowed, must never 
make us forget the reverence with which even 
an Archangel was bidden by God Himself 
to salute her. " Hail, full of grace! " said 



84 Heavenwards 

Gabriel, before whose majesty the prophet 
Daniel had fallen on his face trembling, and 
the just Zachary was filled with fear. 

There is reverence in his every word and 
act; in the way in which he removes her 
trouble at such exalted praise, and replies to 
her question, and satisfies her doubt, and mag- 
nifies the '' Holy " who is to be born of her; 
and — his mission fulfilled, her *' Fiat " se- 
cured, the great Mystery accomplished, his 
act of adoration paid — leaves her instantly, 
silently, without one word of homage or con- 
gratulation, alone with her God and her Son. 

Might it not help us in the first Joyful 
Mystery of the Rosary, to place ourselves 
humbly in a corner of the little room at 
Nazareth at the hour of the Annunciation, 
and watch the Angel's entrance, and note his 
attitude, his tone, his glowing reverent face, 
and learn from him how to say, what it was 
his privilege to teach all generations to say: 
Hail Mary! 

. . . "Now raise thy view 
Unto the visage most resembling Christ: 
For in her splendour only shalt thou win 
The power to look on Him/' Forthwith I saw 
Such floods of gladness on her visage shower'd 
From holy spirits, winging that profound, 
That whatsoever I had yet beheld 
Had not so much suspended me with wonder 
Or shown me such similitude of God, 



Hail Mary 85 

And he, who had to her descended once 

On earth, now hail'd in heaven, and on poised wing, 

"Ave Maria, Gratia Plena,'' sang: 

To whose sweet anthem all the blissful court 

From all parts answering, rang, that holier joy 

Brooded the deep serene.^ 

^Paradise. Canto XXXII. Dante. 



XIII 



" us ALSO " 




""Master, in saying these things Thou reproachest us also." 

(S. Luke II.) 

^E can hear the indignant tone of 
these lawyers. The Master's 
implied rebuke was uninten- 
tional no doubt. That He 
should presume to include them in His re- 
proaches was not to be thought of, but He 
must be more circumspect, His words were 
open to misconstruction and might lessen the 
reverence due to them as the people's teachers 
and guides. 

So little they knew themselves. Or rather, 
so alarmed were they lest others should know 
them! All their concern was to stand well 
with the crowd, to be the objects of special 
veneration for a sanctity of which they knew 
themselves to be utterly destitute. What they 
were before God mattered little, but a slight 
that lowered them in the eyes of men was re- 
sented as an intolerable injury. 

Is there anything of this spirit in us? Are 

86 



" Us Also " 87 

we never piqued at a word in a sermon that 
points our way, an insinuation that hurts our 
self-respect, especially if conscience has thrust 
it home? It is fitting, of course, that people 
should be instructed from the pulpit and re- 
minded of their failings, but propriety re- 
quires the repression of whatever might make 
our conduct the subject of adverse criticism, 
of any blame that might be supposed to in- 
clude us also. 

How did our Lord meet this display of the 
pride and hypocrisy He detests? How did 
He who had nothing but words of tender re- 
assurance for the public sinner, deal with 
these self-righteous men? Because they re- 
sented His censure of the Pharisees as a re- 
buke to themselves, He singled them out for 
special denunciation as severe as it was just. 
Before the eyes of the simple people whom 
they had deceived, He unveiled their hypoc- 
risy, their cruelty, their hardness of heart: 
*' Wo to you lawyers also!" Again and 
again came those words, terrible in them- 
selves and made unspeakably awful by the 
wrath in His eye, in His bearing, in the tones 
of His voice. 

How odious in His sight is the self-suffi- 
ciency that never owns itself in fault ! Better 
by far sit down humbly among our fellow 
sinners, and accept from whatever source It 



88 Heavenwards 

comes, the blame that is our due, than by 
whitewashing ourselves become a mark for 
special condemnation. For *' God resists the 
proud and gives His grace to the humble." 
(S. James 4.) 




XIV 

"who is my neighbour?'* 

(S. Luke 10.) 

HE lawyer who asked our Lord, 
tempting Him, what he must do 
to possess eternal life, was asked 
in his turn: *' What is written in 
the law, how readest thou? " He made an- 
swer: ''Thou shalt love the Lord thy God 
with thy whole heart, and with thy whole 
soul, and with all thy strength, and with all 
thy mind, and thy neighbour as thyself.'' 
Jesus said to him: "Thou hast answered 
right, this do and thou shalt live." But he 
willing to justify himself said to Jesus: " And 
who is my neighbour? " 

In the parable which was the reply to this 
question, we cannot but notice that those 
called " neighbours " by our Lord are not by 
any means such as we ordinarily understand 
by the term — not persons living near one an- 
other, not brought together by work in com- 
mon in any of the relations of social life, but 
utter strangers, separated by fierce and long- 

89 



90 Heavenwards 

standing differences, racial and religious, who 
might have been supposed to have no mutual 
duties. It is these whom our Lord declares 
to be neighbours, and should any such be in 
need, they are to be assisted even at great in- 
convenience and expenditure of time, money, 
personal service and sacrifice. 

In the tender-hearted Samaritan, our Lord 
gives us a model of the charity that prefers 
work to talk; that instead of offering useless 
advice to those in trouble, bestirs itself and 
is really helpful; that sacrifices its own con- 
venience to the needs of others; that shows 
kindness, whatever feelings may be — and 
then He says to each one of us: '^ Go and do 
thou in like manner." 

Do we think enough of these '* neigh- 
bours " of ours, with whom circumxStances so 
often bring us into contact, and who are wait- 
ing for us to pass by in order to receive the 
help they need? In a railway carriage, in 
church, among our visitors or servants, in a 
hundred unsuspected places, we may find our 
needy neighbour. 

*' But surely," it may be urged, '' we are 
not called upon to obtrude ourselves upon the 
notice of strangers with unseasonable advice 
or help! such interference would be de- 
servedly resented." 

No, certainly, we are not invited to be 



" Who is My Neighbour? " 91 

either tiresome or officious, but only to have 
the quick eye with which charity and zeal 
note needs and opportunities that many never 
see — a stranger, evidently a Protestant, com- 
ing night after night to church during a mis- 
sion without a book or clue to the service, 
religious questions started in the train by in- 
quirers apparently sincere, a street accident 
where the sufferer is an Irishman and pre- 
sumably a Catholic — are but samples of the 
cases in which we may step in and help. 

What hinders many of us, is either an alto- 
gether inadequate idea of our obligations to 
our neighbour, as our Lord understands them ; 
or, on the other hand, an exaggerated notion 
of the qualifications needed for efficient help ; 
or ill-timed shyness; or the fear of meeting 
with a rebuff; or simply the want of interest 
in the souls with which we are brought into 
contact day by day. Now none of these diffi- 
culties occurred to the Samaritan whom our 
Lord sets before us as a model. He was not 
sent but *' went up " to the wounded man by 
the roadside. If we wait for formal intro- 
ductions, or distinct invitations on the part of 
those we might assist, we shall do nothing. 
And suppose we do meet with a repulse now 
and again — ^what then? If out of a hundred 
cases we succeeded once, it would be well 
worth while, for think what it is to be able 



92 Heavenwards 

to help one soul ! Of course we must not be 
indiscreet, but oh ! if we knew the possibili- 
ties that lie in the way of those quick to see 
and profit by them — on a visit, during a holi- 
day ramble, at a table d'hote, we should be 
on the alert always, ready for any opportu- 
nity God may send us for furthering His 
designs. 

Prayer, at least, is always safe. If we are 
afraid to venture farther, we need have no 
hesitation here. There is often an instinctive 
feeling that a soul needs help, there may be 
no opening for a word, but prayer is always 
at hand, and is always safe. 

But there are occasions without number 
when precautions of this kind are not called 
for, when the need is manifest and volunteers 
are welcome. Can we not do something for 
those whose faith is exposed to many tempta- 
tions? See how ready others are for self- 
sacrifice in order to help souls ; how they give 
time, talent, tact, to make pleasant evenings 
for those who might else be driven to seek 
dangerous amusement elsewhere. Some kind 
of pleasure we must all have, but those who 
get a great deal are apt to forget that all 
around them are hundreds who scarcely know 
what rest and holiday mean. Yet they need 
both, anS if we do not exert ourselves, they 
may look for relaxation where it may hurt 



" Who is My Neighbour? " 93 

them to find it. Must not we who have the 
leisure, provide it for them where they may 
enjoy it with safety? Must we not call in 
our ingenuity to help the overworked priests 
in contriving an outing for the Children of 
Mary, a treat for the choir, a feast for the 
school children and the like ? 

These are days when the laity must come 
forward with whatever they can bring to the 
service of the great cause, if souls are to be 
saved. If we listen, we shall hear them cry 
out to us like Peter sinking in the stormy sea : 
" Doth it not concern thee that we perish? " 
If we listen, we shall hear the Heart of Christ 
crying to us from the Cross: '* I thirst!'' 
Can we not do something for Him ? He has 
toiled and suffered for souls till His last 
breath; can we not help Him who can do no 
more? 

A suggestive question to put to ourselves 
is: '* Suppose everyone were to understand 
the precept — precept, mind, not counsel of 
Christ — in this matter, and to act upon it as 
I do, and were to use their opportunities as 
I use mine, what would the results be to the 
Catholic cause ; would the Church and needy 
souls have reason to rejoice, or otherwise? " 




XV 

HARD PRAYER 

*Thou turnedst away Thy face from me and I became troubled/* 

(Ps. 29.) 

* FATHER, we are told, seems 
to have no influence upon wire- 
less telegraphy ; rain, fog, snow, 
and wind fail to obstruct. 
Through all, the oscillations of the electro- 
magnetic waves set up in the transmitter fall 
upon the receiver tuned in sympathy with it, 
coherence follows, currents are excited and the 
signals made. 

Would it were so with the obstructions we 
meet in prayer from our ever varying moods ! 
There are times when our mind comes into 
contact immediately and as it were naturally 
with heavenly things, the soul allies herself 
readily with the spiritual realities to which 
she is akin and finds joy and refreshment in 
them. Such happy prayer glorifies God and 
is pleasing to Him : '* He that adoreth God 
with joy shall be accepted and his prayer shall 
approach even to the clouds." (Ecclus. 35.) 
But there are times — and how often they 
94 



Hard Prayer 95 

come! when no effort avails to bring us into 
relation with the unseen world. Our soul 
seems to be of the earth earthly, so enslaved 
by the senses, so dragged down by the body 
of clay, that the ascendancy of its spiritual 
nature is indiscernible. Its faculties remain 
inert and refuse to be won or driven. No 
consideration we can bring to bear upon them 
takes effect; the rain, fog, snow, and wind 
of psychological regions effectually intercept 
communication between us and the objects 
we try in vain to reach. 

This state of things is disheartening, yet it 
can and must be utilised, for it is of frequent 
recurrence in the spiritual life and if not used 
aright will bring with it the temptation to 
abandon prayer. 

We have to bear in mind that it has its 
advantages. It comes under the ** all things " 
which, according to St. Paul, '' work together 
for the good of them that love God." (Rom. 
8.) It is an enormous help to the gaining 
of humility, and humility at once brings the 
soul into communication with God: ** the 
prayer of him that humbleth himself shall 
pierce the douds and will not depart till the 
Most High behold." (Ecclus. 35.) We 
may note by the way that the very same prom- 
ise of piercing the clouds is made to humble 
as to joyful prayer. 



96 Heavenwards 

To humble ourselves when in this helpless 
state should not be hard, and no other dis- 
position is needed to bring God near. And 
near to help. '* The Lord will not be slack 
• . . and He shall delight the just with His 
mercy." (ibid.) 

Because of the virtues this painful prayer 
calls forth, it is wonderfully meritorious. 
Who does not love to be with God if He but 
shows His Face, if He lifts the veil ever so 
little. It is the hiding of that Face that 
plunges us into darkness and distress : '' Thou 
turnedst away Thy face from me and I be- 
came troubled,'' says David, (Ps. 29.) and his 
experience is common to us all. All who are 
to stand before the Face of God for ever 
have to bear the passing pain of this eclipse. 
We take up the Life of one Saint after an- 
other and invariably come upon this phase 
of their spiritual training. No matter how 
short or innocent or uneventful to outward 
seeming their course may be, this universal 
law will be found worked out in it sooner or 
later. 

Is there not some consolation for us here ? 
To find ourselves sharing in one particular at 
least, and that an indispensable one, the ex- 
perience of all the Saints, is cheering, pro- 
vided we behave like them under the trial, 
content to serve God for a while at our own 



Hard Prayer 97 

cost ; to love Him for what He is rather than 
for what He gives ; to stay unweariedly 
knocking at His door; to give Him what we 
can, poor as it may be ; patient with Him and 
with ourselves, and resolute in our determina- 
tion to cling steadfastly to prayer how long 
or how painful the time of trial may be. 

** Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let 
thy heart take courage and wait thou for the 
Lord." (Ps. 26.) 

*' Wait on God with patience, join thyself 
to Him and endure." (Ecclus. 2.) 

** Wait for His mercy and go not aside 
from Him lest you fall." (ibid.) 

*' The Lord is only for them that wait 
upon Him," (Ecclus. 34.) 

And we will make answer : 

" My heart hath said to Thee: My face 
hath sought Thee ; Thy face, O Lord, will I 
still seek." (Ps. 26.) 

'* Reward them that patiently wait for 
Thee and hear the prayers of Thy servants." 
(Ecclus. 2^.) 




XVI 
"who is this? " 

"Who is this that cometh up from the desert, flowing with delights, 
leaning upon her beloved?" (Cant. 8.) 

fjUCH was the cry of admiration 
with which Heaven greeted Its 
Queen, the cry of the Holy An- 
gels to whom the Feast of her 
Assumption, as the Church tells us,^ brought 
special joy. 

Their gaze had followed her with ever- 
increasing wonder through the years of her 
life on earth. They saw the magnificence 
with which, in view of her future dignity, 
she was dowered from the first. They saw 
the perfect fidelity with which she traded with 
her immense treasure from the earliest mo- 
ment of a long life to the latest. Not an 
instant lost through all those years; every 
duty accomplished as perfectly as was pos- 
sible; every grace utilised to the utmost; 
every opportunity profited by to the full; 
every cross embraced with absolute conform- 
ity and love; every virtue practised with a 

1 Introit for the Feast- 



" Who is This? " 99 

purity and perfection attained by no other 
mere creature. And glorious and marvellous 
above all these graces and gifts, they saw the 
humility which beheld in her only the hand- 
maid of the Lord in whom it had pleased 
Him to do great things. 

Great things on earth, great things in 
Heaven. So great, that the Blessed spirits 
as they flocked out to meet her exclaimed in 
astonishment: ** Who is this?" 

Is this the lowly one of Nazareth, the 
spouse of the carpenter ? Is this she who laid 
her hands so gladly to humble, household 
work; who hid away when the whole world 
went after her Divine Son; who took no part 
in His triumphs, but came forth and claimed 
Him in His disgrace? Is this she whose life 
was one long martyrdom; whose soul was 
pierced with seven swords ; who knew on Cal- 
vary the cruellest of partings the world has 
ever seen ; whose heart was rent with anguish 
as never mother's heart before or since? Is 
it the same who now comes to us as a Queen, 
flowing with delights, Empress of Heaven 
and earth, '' called from Libanus to be 
crowned? " (Cant. 4.) 

''PFhois thisf'' 

We look forward a few years and see an- 
other reception into the Heavenly Kingdom 



100 Heavenwards 

— our own. We see ourselves led by our 
faithful Angel Guardian through the Eternal 
Gates and met and welcomed by the Angelic 
host. They love these receptions and are al- 
ways ready to pour out in their myriads to 
meet each lowly soul that comes to swell their 
ranks. And now it is mine they come to re- 
ceive. How surprised I am at their reverent 
as well as affectionate greeting, at their cry 
of admiration: *' Who is this? " 

Is this the soul so long halting between 
two ways? (III. Kings i8.) so weak and 
fickle, brave in resolution and faltering in 
execution ; so low in its aspirations, so strange- 
ly inconsistent, so dearly loved by our Lord 
God, and so fearful of doing too much for 
Him in return ; so ready to mete out its serv- 
ice, abridge its prayer, dole out its alms; so 
afraid of a little labour, so terrified of the 
Cross? Is this she who was a prey to so 
many fears, who found it hard to trust in 
God and abandon herself wholly to His Will ? 
Who is this? The same we have watched 
and yearned over and prayed to see with us 
one day safe on this blessed shore? 

Our Angel makes reply : 

" Yes, it is the same. Weak and fearful 
and falling often, this child of mine has held 
fast to prayer. Her sorrow for sin has been 
sincere and lifelong; she has risen promptly 



" Who is This? '' 101 

after a fall; she has renewed her strength by 
frequent recourse to the holy Sacraments, and 
gently, gradually, they have lifted her above 
the low plane of spiritual selfishness to a 
larger, broader, happier service of God be- 
cause freed from the thraldom of mere self- 
seeking. She has stretched out her hand to 
the poor and needy; she has not waited till 
work for God was thrust upon her but has 
gone out to seek it; she has helped many a 
fellow traveller by the way, shared many a 
burden, prevented many a fall. The cleans- 
ing fires have done the rest. And now we 
are on our way to the embrace of the Bride- 
groom and to the Coronation ! " 



XVII 




LEST WE FORGET 

'Oh how great and honourable is the office of priests! *" 

(Imit. Christ, Bk. iv. ch. II.) 

^E are surprised when a soldier 
or one serving on board a sub- 
marine tells us of the amount 
of time and pains spent daily in 
cleaning and polishing the various parts of 
their equipment. " Surely," we say, *' there 
can be no need to have everything so spic and 
span I " 

Yet those who ought to know best tell us 
it is necessary. The constant action of the at- 
mosphere, and the deterioration consequent on 
daily use, or the accidental injury to which these 
things are liable, — all this calls for continual 
supervision if they are to be kept in working 
order and found reliable when called for. 

So is it with the things of Faith. They 
have to be passed in review, examined, re- 
furnished, or they will either become useless 
by neglect, or blunted by familiarity. Our 
spiritual duties — prayer, morning and even- 
ing, the Sacraments, Mass, daily examination 

102 



Lest We Forget 103 

of conscience; our duties to others and to 
ourselves, require constant attention. Like 
the Psalmist we must be able to say: "My 
soul is always in my hands." (Ps. ii8.) 

Constant contact with holy things helps or 
harms just in proportion to the brightness or 
dulness of our faith. And one point which 
we shall do well not to omit from occasional 
review, is our duty to priests and the way in 
which we think and speak of them. 

If there were but one priest in the world, 
A'Kempis says, what reverence would he not 
inspire. Yet the dignity of the priesthood is 
not lessened because it is shared by many. 

'* True," we shall be told, " but there are 
priests and priests." 

Undoubtedly; and it Is precisely because 
of the human element that exists in greater 
or less prominence everywhere, that we have 
to enliven our faith, and penetrate beneath 
the surface, or rise above mere externals, to 
see things from its standpoint. God's dis- 
pensations might have been different from 
what they are. He might have willed to offer 
sacrifice, and absolve and communicate us, 
through the ministry of Angels. It is enough 
for us to know that He has chosen other 
means, to be satisfied that these means are 
best. We think, perhaps, that angelic min- 
istry would have inspired us always with the 



104 Heavenwards 

awe and reverence due to their oiEce. Alas I 
should not a little self-knowledge convince us 
of the contrary? We get used to the most 
astounding mysteries. We know God is 
really present upon our altars and within our 
breasts, and we can hardly produce in our- 
selves the faintest response to what we be- 
lieve. It is not so much our fault as our mis- 
fortune that use has this tendency to deaden 
perception. But the apathy becomes faulty 
and harmful when we neglect the means by 
which faith is roused, and without which it 
lies dormant and to a certain extent ineffi- 
cacious. 

We must dwell thoughtfully on the won- 
derful fact of the Real Presence. We must 
pass beyond appearances to the sublime reali- 
ties of the Mass and the Sacraments, and to 
the stupendous dignity of those chosen min- 
isters to whom is committed an office denied 
to Angels. 

And just as our merit as we kneel before 
Christ hidden on the altar is in proportion 
to our faith, so is it in our dealings with 
those who serve the altar. If our inter- 
course with them is to be fruitful to our- 
selves and to others, it must be inspired 
by faith. It may be doubted perhaps, 
whether in any other matter the exercise 
of faith presents more practical difficulties. 



Lest We Forget 105 

The vocation which raises them to such 
an incomparable height does not thereby 
transform them. The influences of home, 
education, environment, character, tempta- 
tion, tell upon them as upon ourselves; and 
trials and difficulties special to their calling, 
which they alone can appreciate rightly, and 
which an inviolable secret compels them to 
bear alone, have effects which they would be 
superhuman to escape entirely. It must be 
so, and is so because God has thus ordained 
things for our good. 

The great Apostle is never tired of draw- 
ing our attention to the marvellous fruits of 
faith. The heights to which it attains in each 
soul is the measure of the soul's worth in 
God's sight. And faith is meritorious pre- 
cisely because of the difficulties which it sur- 
mounts. 

Let us think of this in our dealings with 
priests. Let us reflect on their dignity till 
we have laid in our souls a foundation of rev- 
erence that nothing can destroy. Not the evi- 
dences of human frailty, nor the sadder re- 
sults of temptation to which by their very 
ministry they are exposed, can justify our 
making them the butt of thoughtless and 
harmful speech. *' Touch not my anointed, 
and do no evil to My prophets," (L Par. i6. 
Ps. 104.) is a command we cannot too ear- 



106 Heavenwards 

nestly take to heart. Justice to them, justice 
to others, to say nothing of the consequences 
to ourselves, forbids us to give utterance to 
every idle and inconsiderate thought that 
crosses our mind. What right have we to 
criticise a sermon, or an act of his ministry 
of which the priest alone is the competent 
judge? By what privilege are we entitled to 
destroy his people's trust in him, to restrict 
their alms, to plant suspicion, to spread tales, 
to render individuals unfriendly or even 
positively hostile ? By what authority do we 
question the prudence of his guidance of 
others, or encourage frivolous talk about that 
sacred tribunal where the priest sits as judge, 
and the penitent's duty is humble self-accusa- 
tion at the time — and silence afterwards? 

Who shall tell the harm done to souls and 
the cruel injustice to priests by the retailing 
of advice adapted to individual need and in 
no wise intended for general application? If 
the duty of restitution binds wherever char- 
acter has been injured, what shall we say of 
its obligation when the victim has been a 
priest? Fear, in the absence of any other 
sufficient check, should restrain our tattling 
tongues, which in a couple of minutes may do 
harm that is simply irreparable. 

Though we may have little to reproach 
ourselves with on this head, occasional self- 



Lest We Forget 107 

examination may not be out of place. The 
spirit of reverence in any of its manifestations 
is no characteristic of our times, and in a mat- 
ter where for our own sake and the sake of 
all about us, it becomes a distinct duty to cul- 
tivate and to show it, we shall do well to give 
it now and then a few moments' serious 
thought — lest we forget. 




XVIII 

GIVE US THIS DAY OUR DAILY BREAD 

T is the cry of children, sponta- 
neous at times clamorous. They 
ask, not for rich, savoury food, 
but for that which is the staff of 
life — bread, and they ask it daily for the sup- 
ply of each day's need. 

For another Bread, too, we cry, the Bread 
of the strong, by which we live for ever, and 
it is a true instinct which bids us ask for It 
daily. 

Father, give us this day our daily bread. 
The father is the bread-giver; round him the 
hungry children crowd and cry. Our Father 
who art in Heaven, who *' openest Thy hand 
and fillest with blessing every living creature," 
(Ps. 144.) *'who givest food to the young 
ravens that call to Thee," (Job. 38.) ''are 
not we of more value than they " ? (S. Matth. 

Give us — it is the children's right to have 
for the mere asking. They do not beg nor 
buy, for the father knows their need. Our 
Father in Heaven not only gives but presses 

108 



Give Us this Day Our Daily Bread 109 

upon us this divine Food, and reproaches us 
when we hang back from Him: *' You will 
not come to Me that you may have life." 
(S. John 5.) 

Give MS — ^we say. And at once the table 
is spread and we are bidden to take our places 
there. No long preparation is needed. 
" Open thy mouth and eat what I give thee," 
(Ezech. 2.) '* and passing. He will minister 
to them." (S. Luke 12.) 

This day. What does it bring us? what 
will It ask of us ? One day will bring the sum- 
mons Home. Every day brings its work and 
its burdens, its responsibilities, its choices and 
decisions. This day will ask of us fidelity and 
sacrifice, and these things need strength — 
Father, " give us this day our daily Bread! " 

Our daily bread. For we are Thy chil- 
dren, the bread of the household is ours. We 
ask for our own ; for Its excellence It is called 
the Bread of Angels, but It is prepared for 
us — Father, " give us always this Bread." (S. 
John 6.) 

Daily bread. It might have been given 
under some costlier form but then we should 
not have been invited daily. Our Lord would 
have It In the form of bread — common, sim- 
ple food, easily procured, the food of which 
we do not tire, the food of all alike, to take 
from us any excuse for absenting ourselves 



110 Heavenwards 

from our Father's table. He draws us thith- 
er by promises and threats. He insists upon 
the Food He has prepared being meant for 
daily use — '' give us this day our daily 
bread." Its infinite value must not frighten 
us. For It is prepared on purpose for us, to 
meet our daily need, to be the sanctification 
of each day; to strengthen us to take up its 
burdens easily; to meet bravely its difficulties 
and its trials; to supernaturalize its joys; that 
we may live by Christ whom we have re- 
ceived, and by Him, with Him, in Him, pass 
safely through its dangers and deserve its re- 
wards. 

Father, give us this day our daily Bread. 
And give us, for Thou canst, something be- 
yond even this Unspeakable Gift — the light 
to know better Its infinite worth, to prize It 
more, and to show our appreciation and grati- 
tude, not by neglecting It, under any of the 
foolish and false pretexts that indifference will 
suggest, but by receiving It humbly and often, 
bringing such preparation as we are able. 




XIX 

''all thy ways are prepared" 

(Judith 9.) 

ND the preparation was from 
eternity. Through uncounted 
ages, when no sound broke the 
3 stillness of the eternal years, when 
God was not yet Creator, even then we existed 
in the Divine Mind, with our distinct place 
in Time and in God's universal plan. The 
beauty of His finished work was to depend 
for certain details on our free cooperation. 
We and no other were to render Him the 
special service He would ask at our hands. 

All was special about us — circumstances, 
helps, trials, friendships, work, successes, dis- 
appointments, opportunities, vocation, graces ; 
designed and chosen one and all by God Him- 
self to be instruments for the realisation of 
His ideal as to our individual soul. 

It was not a soul simply, or any soul that 
God brooded over from eternity with the love 
of Father, Mother, Creator, Brother, Bride- 
groom, all in one. It was not any work that 
was to be made ready to our hands, or any 

111 



112 Heavenwards 

path on which our feet were to be set. But 
all was prepared, Divine Wisdom and Divine 
Love combining in the Providence which 
foresaw and ordained all even to the smallest 
detail of our life, '* reaching from end to end 
mightily and ordering all things sweetly." 
(Wisd. 8.) 

Why the way is level here and sheltered, 
brightened with flowers and made delightful 
by the companionship of those we love, why 
further on it crosses a desert waste, dips into 
a dark valley, skirts a precipice, or climbs a 
weary height, we may not know now, but this 
we know — that wherever it goes it is pre- 
pared, with what solicitude, with what tender 
provision for our need we shall see one day 
when we look down upon it from our place 
in Heaven. 

We shall not wish that it had been ordered 
otherwise, that the hills had been lowered or 
the valleys filled for us, the crooked ways 
made straight or the rough ways plain. '* He 
hath done all things well ! " we shall cry in 
thanksgiving and joy. '^ Oh that I had 
known sooner the things that were for my 
peace, that I had realised what my faith 
taught me, and without misgiving, w^ithout 
questioning had abandoned myself to the 
Love that from eternity had prepared all my 
way! " 




XX 

*' TOLLE lege! " 

JAD Plato, or Aristotle, or Socrates, 
those seekers after truth, been 
told that Truth Itself had come 
upon earth and founded a school 
that was to embrace all mankind, and given 
His doctrine by word of mouth, and followed 
it up by His own example ; had they learned 
that four among His disciples had committed 
to writing His Life and teaching, with the 
rules of conduct He had left for the guidance 
of His followers, how eager would they have 
been to study that Life and doctrine, and to 
possess themselves of any fragments of those 
writings by which they might learn His spirit 
and form themselves upon it ! 

The first Christians made great account of 
such portions of the Scriptures, of the Gospels 
especially, as they could obtain. The daily 
study of the Holy Books was enjoined upon 
their disciples by the founders of the earliest 
monasteries. In all ages they have been 
light, food, remedy, refreshment, and com- 
fort to the servants of God. It was by the 

113 



114 Heavenwards 

study of their Divine Model in the Gospels 
that the Saints grew into His likeness, it is 
by this study we must all gain that resem- 
blance to Him which is the mark of the pre- 
destinate: ''those whom He foreknew He 
also predestinated to be made conformable 
to the image of His Son." (Rom. 8.) '' It 
hath not yet appeared what we shall be," 
says St. John, '' but we know that we shall be 
like Him." (I. S.John 3.) 

The likeness has to be acquired here; to 
bring It out more and more perfectly in our- 
selves, life and time are granted us; the de- 
gree in which we shall have achieved it when 
death comes, will be the measure of our eter- 
nal reward. 

If, then, the hall mark of sanctity is like- 
ness to Christ, if a certain measure of con- 
formity is necessary even for salvation, ought 
we not to make the study of our Lord's Life 
and words and actions, of His virtues and 
spirit and character, as revealed to us in the 
Holy Gospels, one of our regular occupa- 
tions ? 

'' We have no time." Yet we have time 
for dress and amusement, for the skating- 
rink, for golf, and '' bridge," and novel-read- 
ing, and visits, and a thousand trivialities 
which enter into our day. 

We find time for reading the papers and 



" Tolle Lege! '' 115 

the latest books out, spiritual books even, pro- 
vided they are new and entertaining. We are 
ashamed to own to ignorance when there is 
question of the doings of some celebrity, of 
whom the world began to talk only yesterday 
and who will be ousted by rivals tomorrow 
from the place he holds today. But the Life 
of Him who has changed the face of the 
world, whose influence extends not only 
through all time, but through the ages of 
eternity, whose Life is a series of the most 
marvellous events recorded by history, whose 
character is the most beautiful, whose work 
the most enduring earth has ever seen — this 
we find insipid. We hear fragments of it 
read in church from time to time, and this 
seems to us sufficient. 

But is it? Does any student use his text- 
book thus? Does the photographer trust to 
his picture coming out all right when he neg- 
lects the proper means for developing it ? Is 
it safe to do as little as we can to ensure a 
place amongst those who are to be near their 
Lord for ever because they have made them- 
selves like Him? And — for a higher more 
unselfish motive must appeal to us — is it 
grateful to neglect the study of a Life lived 
solely for our instruction, and example ? We 
see what kings and prophets and pagan sages 
desired to see. We can each of us say with 



116 Heavenwards 

St. Paul : '' I live in the faith of the Son of 
God who loved me and delivered Himself for 
me." (Gal. 2.) Because we love Him and 
desire to love Him daily more and more, we 
shall prize the revelation of Himself which 
in the Holy Gospels He makes to us, and use 
it to the end for which it was given. 

Knowledge and love grow together and 
one is the measure of the other. Were we to 
study for five minutes daily the record of 
those blessed three and thirty years, we 
should find a change for the better in our re- 
lations with Him before many months were 
past. Mass, and Communion, and Benedic- 
tion, and Visits to Him in the Blessed Sacra- 
ment, would be different. Faith, Hope, and 
Charity would take quite a new development 
in our souls ; we should begin to say to our- 
selves in joyful surprise: "/ know in whom 
I have believed." (II. Tim. i.) 




XXI 

BEFORE CONFESSION 

"And now, O Lord Almighty, the soul in anguish and the troubled 
spirit crieth to Thee." (Baruch 3.) 

'N anguish, because of the multi- 
tude of my sins; because of their 
singular malice as my sins; be- 
cause of the ingratitude of a child 
so specially beloved. In anguish, because my 
heart is hard and insensible when it should be 
broken with sorrow. Surely there is a contri- 
tion on which Thy fatherly eye rests in abun- 
dant pity — the grief that has no tears, that 
finds no assurance of its reality, either in a 
keen appreciation of the malice of sin, or of 
the love that has remitted the penalties sin 
has deserved, or of the need of reparation. 

St. Augustine tells us he found more hap- 
piness in the tears he shed over his past life 
than in any pleasure it had brought him. 
How we envy him those tears, we to whom 
the strongest motives for sorrow appeal so 
feebly! O Human Heart of Christ, broken 
for our sins, can Thy fellow feeling for us in 
all things reach even to this, that the pain of 

117 



118 Heavenwards 

insensibility should be a further claim to Thy 
sympathy and Thy help ? Thanks be to Thee 
for the account Thou dost make of our will 
and of our desires. These at least we can 
to some extent control. We can wish we had 
never sinned. We can desire to have the 
sorrow of David and of Peter, of Magdalen, 
of Augustine, and of all true penitents. And 
though we can give no guarantee that we shall 
not sin again, we can unite our will to Thine 
now, with the resolve promptly and trust- 
fully to renew this union whenever any in- 
fidelity has slackened our hold on Thee. In 
our confessions we can renew our sorrow for 
past sin, now of this period of our life, now 
of that, and so purify our soul more and more 
with the waters of true contrition. In our 
Communions we can cling to Thee, if not with 
sensible devotion, with the fervour of the will 
which is in our power always, with the deter- 
mination to shun with Thy help even the least 
deliberate sin. Thus may union with Thee 
become so constant and so strong, that in our 
measure we may be able to say with the con- 
fidence of thy blessed Apostle: ''What shall 
separate us from the love of Christ?" 
(Rom. 8.) 



XXII 

GOD WITH US 

''Who win give Thee to me for my Brother?** (Cant. 8.) 



m 



m 



HE obsen^ance by the Jews of the 
great Commandment of the Law : 
Thou shalt love the Lord thy 
God with thy whole heart and 
with thy whole soul, and with thy whole 
strength," (Deut. 6.) a command given 
amidst thunder and lightning, and fire, and 
darkness, and the noise of the trumpet, must 
have been difficult. At least so it seems to us 
who live under the Law of Love. And how 
imperfectly, as far as we can gather, it was 
observed. Here and there we find mar^-el- 
lous examples of fidelit}^ to God's commands, 
zeal for his worship, resignation to His Will. 
But a personal love that absorbed the whole 
soul — where shall we look for this? Was it 
even possible? Even in the tenderest mani- 
festations of His Providence there was noth- 
ing for the grateful heart to leap up to and 
embrace in its thankfulness. Afar off, '^ in- 
habiting light inaccessible," (I. Tim. 6.) He 

119 



120 Heavenwards 

dwelt, where fear, indeed, and reverent wor- 
ship could reach Him, but familiar love, 
hardly. 

The hearts He had made for Himself 
longed for a God who could be seen and 
heard and touched, a God to whom they 
could draw near with their offerings of praise 
and thanksgiving, and above all, of propitia- 
tion. The widespread prevalence of idolatry 
testifies to the universality of this desire, and 
among the chosen people we hear such cries 
as: ''Who will give Thee to me for my 
Brother? " (Cant. 8.) " Drop down dew, 
ye heavens from above, and let the clouds 
rain the Just ; let the earth be opened and bud 
forth a Saviour." (Isaias 45.) "Oh that 
Thou wouldst rend the Heavens and come 
down! " (Isaias 64.) 

Four thousand years of that mysterious 
yearning for Him — and then He came. 
" Afterwards He was seen upon earth and 
conversed with men.'' (Baruch 3.) 

He came amongst us as one of ourselves. 
He placed Himself completely at our dis- 
posal, to lead the kind of life, to die the sort 
of death that should be most helpful to us. 
Men passed Him in the streets, jostled Him 
in the crowd, watched Him at prayer, sat by 
Him at meat, approved or criticised His deal- 
ings with the sick, the lowly, the sorrowful, 



God with Us 121 

the sin-stained. So attractive, that thousands, 
bearing their sick with them, flocked into the 
desert or toiled up the mountains after Him, 
unmindful of hunger, shelter, the necessary 
pursuits of life, if only from daybreak to sun- 
down they might look upon His Face; so 
mighty, that disease and death, and the devils 
themselves obeyed Him; that the ministers 
sent to apprehend Him, paralysed and then 
fascinated, went away saying: ^' Never did 
man speak like this Man "; (S. John 7.) so 
gentle, that the little children played about 
Him and nestled on His breast; infinitely 
refined, yet content in the society of the simple 
and the uncouth; of exquisite sensibility, yet 
uncomplaining amid the fiercest tortures of 
body and mind ; faithful to His friends, mer- 
ciful to His enemies, grateful for kindness, 
easily moved to tears — so He lived amongst 
us for three and thirty years ! 

And so he remains amongst us still. This 
it is that is so hard to realise in a way that 
makes His Presence a real and constant in- 
fluence on our lives. His character as re- 
vealed to us in the Gospels, attracts us; we 
envy the multitudes that thronged Him, and 
long to have come our selves under His 
charm. But we do not throng His churches, 
nor by frequent visits and the daily Commu- 
nion now brought within our reach, seek 



122 Heavenwards 

familiar intercourse with Him. We say In 
excuse that the absence of all sensible evidence 
of His Presence destroys any parallel between 
ourselves and the eager Jewish crowds. 

It would be foolish to deny the force of 
this objection. Yet the Saints did not argue 
thus, or allow themselves to be disconcerted 
because the Providence of God had not 
thought fit to place their time of trial nine- 
teen centuries back, and their home in Galilee 
or Judea. By acts of faith, and by living up 
to their faith, Jesus on the Altar became to 
them what Jesus of Nazareth was to the Jew- 
ish multitudes of His day. They knew Him 
to be the same *' yesterday, to-day and for 
ever," (Heb. 13.) and hastened to Him with 
every need. They brought Him their adora- 
tion like the shepherds of Bethlehem and the 
Twelve on the hushed Lake and the five hun- 
dred on the Mount of the Ascension. They 
brought Him their anxious questionings like 
Nicodemus, their little children like the Jew- 
ish mothers, their broken hearts like the sis- 
ters of Bethany, their sins like Magdalen. 

It was an effort that cost at first, for the im- 
agination and the restless senses crave some- 
thing on which to fasten. But they perse- 
vered, and found, as we may find, that faith 
is able to bear the burden put upon it during 
this life of trial. Sola fides sufjicit, the 



God with Us 123 

Church persists in saying to her children of 
each generation. And she proves it age after 
age by the Saints whose heroic faith is con- 
tinually raising them to her altars. 

Why must we have at once and without 
price what others have toiled for persever- 
ingly and at great cost ? Why not rather say : 
'' I earnestly desire the end, therefore I will 
take the means? " It is the Presence of Jesus 
in her midst that makes all the difference be- 
tween the Church of Christ and her counter- 
feits. It is the fuller realisation of that Pres- 
ence to which we can all attain, that brings 
at last the glad acknowledgement that His 
tabernacles are lovely; (Ps. 83.) that the 
Lord hidden there is indeed sweet; (Ps. 33.) 
that the vigorous exercise of our faith, and 
patient prayer, are after all but a small price 
to pay for that experimental knowledge of 
God which is the happiness of this life, and 
a foretaste of the possession of God which 
makes the beatitude of eternity. 




XXIII 

EVENTIDE 

*Stay with us because it is towards evening.*' (S. Luke 24.) 

MONG the experiences of later 
life is the sense of loneliness that 
deepens as we near the end of our 
journey. We account for it by 
the fact that we have outlived our generation, 
our interests, our work in life, and by the dis- 
appearance from our path of so many who 
started with us, and whose presence and 
friendship were for long our support in the 
way. 

But there is more than this. The sense of 
isolation which grows upon us is the fore- 
shadowing of the hour when we must go 
down into the dark valley alone. It is thus 
a grace of detachment which belongs to the 
later years of life. 

The word " detachment " has a mournful 
sound for us. It speaks of the severance of 
strong and tender ties, and of the anguish and 
desolation that follow. This is one aspect of 
It. But to faith — and it is now we find the 
support and consolation our faith is to us — 

124 



Eventide 125 

detachment has a brighter side. By making 
room in our hearts for God, it is a prepara- 
tion for a closer attachment to Him who is 
soon to be to us All in All. God never takes 
but to make good the loss. If He loosens our 
hold on the things of earth, it is because the 
time is coming when we shall want to fasten 
our whole grasp on Him who can alone avail 
us when all else falls away. 

He leads us to lean on Him more and 
more. We find Him quietly taking posses- 
sion of the vacant places in our hearts, and 
training us to count on His friendship and 
sympathy as that of earth fails us. He does 
not mean us to live on with empty hearts, or 
to steel ourselves against the need of affection, 
but only — and more completely as the friends 
of this life disappear — to depend on Him 
who gave them to us, who set their path be- 
side our own, and made them what they were 
to us, that in their love and faithfulness we 
might see some faint reflection of His. 

He wants us more and more to Himself 
now. It is not only because eye and hand and 
brain are less apt for their tasks that He 
transfers these to others, but because we are 
nearing the time when the things of eternity 
will take the place of business here, and it 
behooves us to be preparing for it. As the 
work of this world falls from our hands, we 



126 Heavenwards 

must take up that which is to be our occupa- 
tion for ever. St. Bernard says somewhere 
that when two things are to be joined to- 
gether, the ends must correspond. What we 
want our future life to be, we must take care 
the end of this life shall be. 

It is hard for us to realise existence apart 
from the things of sense which hem us in here 
on every side. We have to be weaned from 
them by degrees that we may learn to centre 
our affections on God and hold Him in place 
of all things else. 

'' My God and my All! " Let us try to 
savour these words. In our quiet, solitary 
hours — and there will be more of these now 
— we should turn our thoughts Heavenward, 
and, as St. Paul bids us, (Philip. 3.) have 
our conversation there. A princess who is to 
take her place shortly in a foreign Court, be- 
gins to learn the language of the country and 
to familiarise herself with its ways; so must 
we in the later years of life. Thus shall we 
come to see things from the true standpoint 
and to appraise the affairs of this passing 
world at their right value. 

If the sense of failing strength, helpless- 
ness and uselessness depresses us, let us look 
forward to the new life, the renewed energy, 
the abundant scope for the exercise of all the 
faculties that will be ours before long. 



Eventide 127 

What matter if the world begins to look 
like a strange place, with the old landmarks 
gone, the old places untenanted! We have 
''a lasting city" (Heb. 13.) *' an eternal 
habitation," (II. Cor. 5.) awaiting us. 

If every hour ^d on every side we miss 
the dear familiar faces of other days, let us 
look for them where Angels see them now, 
where we shall see them again — ^before the 
Throne of God. 

And if at times we look back wistfully to 
the home of the past, let us rouse our faith 
to look forward longingly to the home re- 
stored in Heaven, which each bereavement 
here on earth is perfecting, and where the joy 
of reunion will exceed all expectation and 
desire. 

But it Is God Himself whom we are to de- 
sire before and above all things in eternity. 
To each and every one of the Blessed He is 
simply everything. ** Our God " (Apoc. 7.) 
is the name which expresses at once their love 
of Him, their delight in the possession of 
Him, their joy that all in that vast family 
have found in Him their all-sufficing good. 
" My God and my All ! " is the rapturous, un- 
tiring cry of each. All else is but the over- 
flow of their happiness, utterly insignificant 
when set beside that possession of Him which 
is their essential beatitude. How anything 



128 Heavenwards 

can be put in competition with Him, how they 
could ever have preferred their pleasure to 
His, is incomprehensible to them now. His 
Will, His preferences, His Glory, the least 
act, desire, or thought that concerns His in- 
terests or service, they make much account of, 
the rest is nothing to them. 

So will it be with us the moment life is 
passed. It will be so by the necessity of the 
eternal realities into which we enter when 
these transitory things come to an end. They 
are given to us as instruments during our pro- 
bation with which to work out our salvation. 
In themselves they have no value. Health, 
sickness, wealth, poverty, success, failure, all 
these from that height are seen in their true 
light, as things to be desired or shunned only 
in so far as they help or hinder us Heaven- 
ward. 

This will be clear to us as the daylight now. 
There will be no merit in the sight, nor will 
it affect our lot in eternity. But to adjust our 
views now to the standpoint there, to look 
here at the things of time as they are seen 
there, to hold pleasant things with a loose 
hand, and to take hard things cheerfully as 
means of laying up spiritual treasure — this 
will make a marvellous difference to our near- 
ness to God and therefore to our happiness 
throughout eternity. 



Eventide 129 

^* We must be getting every way," (Wisd. 
15.) now that the time is short, and heap up 
treasure every moment by a good use of the 
chances and so-called mischances of life. And 
this is easier than heretofore. The fascina- 
tions that once bewitched us have long since 
loosed their hold; eternal things as we near 
them come out in their true proportions; the 
mist on the distant hills is lifting, and there is 
little to make us tarry on the way. We must 
think less of remaining trials than of the work 
they are doing for us. The end of the journey 
is too near now for overmuch sorrow at the 
troubles of the close: *' When these things 
begin to come to pass, look up and lift up 
your heads, because your redemption is at 
hand." (S. Luke 21.) 

The young are said to live in the future, 
the old in the past. If it be so, let us see that 
the retrospect be one of thankfulness and 
praise, not a morbid harbouring of vain re- 
grets. But, we too, must live in the Future. 
Who should do so if not those who in the 
near distance see the gates of their Home ! 
We must think more of what will be in a few 
years at most than of what was once. Is it 
not a poor return to make for the Kingdom 
prepared for us from the beginning of the 
world, that we see its approach with resigna- 
tion only, that we never say from our hearts : 



130 Heavenwards 

*' Thy Kingdom come," or with the longing 
heart of St. Paul: '' I desire to be dissolved 
and to be with Christ " ? Has the old world 
of sin and trouble which is slipping away 
from beneath our feet, more hold on our 
hearts than the world of spotless sanctity and 
joy which we are entering? 

The Blessed will tell us with loving re- 
proach that we have never yet known true 
joy; that the exchange of this world for the 
next is the exchange of death for life; that 
this new life Is freedom, expansion, peace, 
absolute content, gain every way. God's 
promises are magnificent, and one and all 
there bear Him testimony: ''There has not 
so much as one thing failed of all He prom- 
ised." (III. Kings 8.) 

Let the things of this world go, then. We 
must loose the ropes, and lift the gangway, 
and push off from one shore before we can 
reach the other. Let us keep our faces Heaven- 
ward, and our heart with our Treasure there. 

If we can unite ourselves more frequently, 
even daily, with Our Lord in Holy Commu- 
nion, this will be the best preparation for the 
face to face union that Is at hand. Every 
time we receive Him, every aspiration of love 
as the hours of the day go by, and In our 
waking hours at night, wins for us new near- 
ness to Him for ever. 



Eventide 131 

And we shall want Him near us before we 
come to Him within the veil. He alone can 
go down with us into the dark valley of the 
shadow of death; His arm alone can uphold 
us when all things of this world fall away. 
Only His Voice can comfort and His Pres- 
ence protect us in the perils of that hour. 
What He will be to us then, and through the 
eternity that is to follow, will depend very 
much on what He is to us at present. 

Therefore now at eventide, when the shad- 
ows lengthen and remind us that our day's 
work here is nearly done, we must entreat and 
constrain Him saying: *' It is towards evening 
and the day is now far spent, abide with us, 
abide with us, O Lord ! " 




XXIV 

IN THE STORM 

VERY life has its crucial points. 
Sometimes we see them from afar 
and have time for preparation; 
sometimes, turning a corner, we 
come upon them unawares. Often they seem 
to thrust themselves upon us as obstacles in 
our way when in reality they are golden op- 
portunities to be seized and utilised to the 
full. Our future here and hereafter may be 
decided by them. Yet without vigilance and 
courage to recognise them for what they are, 
we may either pass them by heedlessly or 
come into collision with them to our cost. 

There is a tide in the affairs of men, 

Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune; 

Omitted, all the voyage of our life 

Is bound in shallows and in miseries 

And we must take the current when it serves, 

Or lose our ventures.^ 

These epoch-making crises often come in 
the shape of a trial that taxes the resources 
and calls for all the energy of the soul to meet 

^ Julius Casar, 
132 



In the Storm 133 

the pressure put upon it and to correspond 
with the grace that is offered. It may be the 
death of one whose life through happy years 
has been one with our own. It may be the 
failure of an enterprise on which our hopes 
were set, the loss of fortune, position, influ- 
ence, health. What we had thought part of 
ourselves has suddenly gone from us, and life 
has become a blank. 

The blow stuns at first ; only by degrees do 
we realise its full force — and then comes the 
question: Shall we call to our help the suc- 
cours of Faith, or shall we fling ourselves pas- 
sionately on the grave of our treasure, reject 
all that would bring us consolation and 
strength, harden ourselves against the trial 
and Him who sends it, sink down into selfish 
despondency, and thus not only frustrate the 
designs of God, but turn into matter for chas- 
tisement what was sent in love ? 

Which will it be? Much depends on our 
habit of mind in the past. If the sense of the 
sovereignty of God's Will has penetrated us 
through and through, and trust in the wisdom 
and tenderness of that Will is part of our 
very selves, it will be well with us now; the 
spirit of reverence and submissiveness in 
which our soul is steeped will stand us in good 
stead: " the rain fell and the floods came and 
the winds blew and they beat upon that house 



134 Heavenwards 

and it fell not for it was founded upon a 
rock." (S. Matth. 7.) 

But suppose there has been no such habit 
formed in the past, no such preparation pro- 
vided against the day of trial — what will help 
us in a time of peril like this when submis- 
sion to God and trust in God seem to be fail- 
ing us? 

If we have not these deep-seated convic- 
tions of Faith to fall back upon, we must rely 
all the more absolutely on the actual grace 
which will not be wanting. Enough grace to 
resist the strongest temptation, God always 
gives; more than enough, abundant, super- 
abundant will be given in proportion to the 
earnestness with which we have recourse to 
Him in prayer. 

But we cannot, we say, make the effort to 
pray; the sense of rebellion is too strong for 
us and stifles the words on our lips ; the weight 
that crushes us is too heavy to be thrown off ; 
the void in our lives is too awful to face. We 
have misread God's dealings with us in the 
past ; we cannot kiss His hand now nor throw 
ourselves into His arms. All we ask is to be 
left to ourselves; our friends must not beset 
us with considerations and consolations that 
have lost their force. 

Courage! God was never nearer to us 
than now, for to the trial that came from 



In the Storm 135 

Him and that with His help was not too 
heavy for our strength, is superadded the 
cruel burden of temptation flung upon us by 
the enemy to crush and drive us to despair. 
Despondency is settling down upon us like the 
torpor of the sleeper in the snow; we must 
rouse ourselves. God is at hand, solicitous, 
ready to help. We must call upon Him as 
earnestly as we can: " Lord, save us we per- 
ish!" 

The effort will cost but we can make it. 
Reluctantly, perhaps, and feebly we try to 
bring our will into conformity with the Will 
of God: " Father, not my will but Thine be 
done " — and peace begins to steal into our 
soul. God has met us more than half way. 
He knows the struggle and accepts the good- 
will. Oh that we could find it in our heart 
to give Him more than the bare submission 
to which we are bound ! that we could make 
an act of faith in the wisdom and love of all 
His appointments ; that we could delight Him 
with the grand act of hope which the extrem- 
ity of anguish wrung from His servant Job : 
*' The Lord gave and the Lord hath taken 
away, blessed be the name of the Lord; 
though He should slay me I will trust in 
Him." (Job 13.) 




XXV 

MY CREATOR 

IREATOR — how unattainable is 
the idea ! The mind grows giddy 
at the attempt to grasp it. We 
stand bewildered before what we 
are pleased to call the creations of genius, 
yet what are they? Only the shifting into 
place of the innumerable materials made 
available and experimented on by others, an- 
other modification of them like the combina- 
tions of the kaleidoscope ; but what is this to 
creation ? 

What must He be who has not only made 
but created me ? And by what names can I 
call the rights which the act of creation ne- 
cessarily gives Him over me and all I have or 
can do? What are the rights entailed by fab- 
rication or invention, rights so jealously vin- 
dicated and protected, compared with the 
rights my Creator has over me, the work of 
His hands, rights over my understanding, and 
memory, and will, rights as to the ordering 
of my thoughts, and desires, and affections 

136 



My Creator 137 

and every detail of conduct throughout my 
life? 

The difficulty here is — not to understand 
the sovereignty of His claims, but how He is 
able to make His Will or good pleasure other 
than binding under sin ; how, in consideration 
of my weakness. He can so far condescend as 
to say: *' This you shall not do under pain of 
forfeiting My friendship; this shall consti- 
tute an offence, yet not a grievous one; and 
this I put before you as more acceptable to 
Me, you may comply with it or not without 
displeasing Me." Such liberality reason may 
find it hard to justify — in theory, but oh! 
how different it all is when we come to the car- 
rying out of what so unhesitatingly approves. 

I find myself in life, with a certain equip- 
ment of gifts and faculties that necessarily 
suppose matter for their exercise and respon- 
sibility for their use. And my faith, corrob- 
orating and supplementing my reason tells me 
that my Creator, who, by His very nature is 
goodness and diffusive goodness, has chosen, 
out of all possible creatures whom He might 
have preferred, to create me, to make over to 
me, together with my life, the faculties of 
soul and body and all the multiplicity of 
created things which I enjoy. 

He was free to create or not to create me. 
But He was not free as to the end of my ere- 



138 Heavenwards 

ation, nor could He so constitute my being 
as to make me independent of Himself. He 
Himself must be my End. I am to serve 
Him, not mediately like the irrational crea- 
tures, but directly. I am not made for any 
creature but for Himself. My safety, my 
happiness, my glory is to remain in close and 
willing dependence on Him and to devote to 
His service all He has given me. This He 
has a right to exact from me without attach- 
ing reward to it, but His Will is to recom- 
pense with eternal happiness not only my life 
as a whole, but every thought, word, and act 
directed to His glory and service. 

Miserable shall I be if, disregarding the 
light that reason itself provides, and pervert- 
ing the gifts I have straight from His hand, 
I affect independence of Him, cut myself free 
of Him as far as this depends on my will, 
live my life for myself, give Him only the 
service I dare not refuse Him and give Him 
that grudgingly; if I question His rights, and 
grumble at commands, sacrifice, and pain 
which curtail my liberty and my pleasure. 

Is this the return with which reason — to 
say nothing of faith — would have me requite 
what I may truly call His labour in my serv- 
ice? for everything I have and use and enjoy 
is from Him, given with a lavishness and a 
love that no devotedness of mine can ever 



My Creator 139 

acknowledge or repay. He is obliged even 
in my interests to keep me in dependence on 
Him; out of Him there is no good for me; 
in this life as in the next my happiness is to 
carry out His plan for me. How can I be 
so foolish as to think I can find a better way 
for myself than that which my All-Wise and 
loving Creator has marked out for me, to 
which by the very necessity of my nature I 
am bound ! 

He who created me must surely know me 
better than I know myself. About every par- 
ticle of my being, soul and body. He knows 
all there is to know. All lies before Him 
clear as day, without disguise or complication. 
The working of hereditary instincts, of early 
influences, of growing will-power later on; 
the materials that have gone to build up char- 
acter; the tendencies that are making for 
good or for evil; coming dangers, opportu- 
nities and graces, and the incessant action of 
my freewill upon all this up to my last breath 
— He knows. 

Surely He must know better than I what 
is necessary to fill the capacity for happiness 
which He has given me; and when He tells 
me that wealth, comfort, pleasure, honour, 
earthly affection, will not satisfy me because 
I was not made for any of these things, and 
that union with Him, begun now by sancti- 



140 Heavenwards 

fying grace, perfected in eternity by the face 
to face Vision, full possession and enjoyment 
of Him, will alone content me — I may and 
must trust Him implicitly. Not by doling 
out my service, not by shirking sacrifice, shall 
I satisfy either myself or Him, but only by 
giving Him of my best, and deserving by 
eminent service that distinguished place in 
His Kingdom which means a clearer sight, a 
fuller possession of Him for ever. 

My service of God would gain immeasur- 
ably were I not perpetually looking back to 
see if my own interests were following close 
in its wake. It is self-seeking that by divid- 
ing my forces hampers me at every turn. 
Once let there be the conviction, deep, palpa- 
ble, self-evident, that His interests are mine 
and mine His, and the way is open to the gen- 
erous devotedness that is able to do great 
things for God. 




XXVI 

*' STIR UP THY MIGHT. . . . STIR UP OUR 
HEARTS, O LORD " 

(Mass for the First, Second, and Fourth Sundays of Advent.) 

3ITTLE children spend the best 
part of their time asleep, and it 
is good for them. Is it too much 
to say that we, the children of the 
Church, spend the greater part of our lives 
asleep, to the utter undoing of many, to the 
great and irreparable loss of all? 

Our Mother does all she can to rouse us, 
to get us to shake off our lethargy, and wake 
up to a sense of the thrilling realities around 
us on every side. Now she takes us down 
into the eternal prison-house, that knowing 
its terrors in life, we may not know them af- 
ter death. Now she throws Heaven open be- 
fore us, that the glory and happiness of those 
who have realised the meaning of life, and 
time, and eternity may stir us to emulation 
and effort. In the spring time when the green 
earth is teeming with beauty and with prom- 
ise, she draws us aside and lays ashes on our 
head, and bids us remember Death. Our 

141 



142 Heavenwards 

Lord's word of warning she would have ever 
in our ears: '* Watch! for you know not the 
day nor the hour." 

But it is especially at the beginning and 
close of the ecclesiastical year that she strives 
to startle us into attention. Twice in succes- 
sion she puts before us the closing scene of 
the world's history and the final award of 
happiness or misery to every member of the 
human race. And three times she follows up 
this solemn lesson by the prayer that it may 
not fall upon deaf ears and hearts: Stir up 
thy might, stir up our hearts, O Lord. 

To stir up is not to create but to call into 
activity what is there already but latent. We 
stir the bed of thyme and it gives out its fra- 
grance ; we stir our limbs and they go forth to 
deeds of strength. The Omnipotence of God 
is at our service always, and the instance of 
prayer is stirred in our behalf. But we, too, 
must be stirred, or His desire and His power 
to help will avail us nothing. His holy Spirit 
which in the beginning moved over the waters, 
must wake into activity the faith that is in us. 
It must be His work for of ourselves we can 
do nothing. Love, fear, anger, desire, the 
events and interests of daily life stir us readily 
enough where the things of this life are con- 
cerned, but the impulse of our hearts towards 
any supernatural good must come from Him. 



" stir Up Thy Might, O Lord " 143 

Therefore we pray Him to stir up our 
hearts, to rouse them from their torpor, to 
call into activity the faith of our baptism 
which only waits His touch to put its mighty 
forces into operation. The Saints prayed 
this prayer, and its answer was the heroism 
which throughout eternity will be the admira- 
tion of Angels and men. Their faith is ours 
and is ready to show its strength in our hearts 
as in theirs. What is wanted is the touch that 
will set it in motion, and so we pray : Stir up 
Thy might, stir up our hearts, O Lord. 

My God, come Thyself into my heart and 
stir it to its depths, that all that is within me 
may be alert, eager, zealous, holding itself 
ready for Thy service. Stir up my faith that 
it may be the strong, living principle it was 
in the souls of the Saints. Stir up my hope, 
to trust Thee with the unquestioning confi- 
dence Thou hast a right to expect from Thy 
child. Stir up my love and warm my heart 
by contact with Thine own. Stir up my de- 
sires that like the sluggish rivers of low-lying 
lands are apt to lose themselves in the things 
of earth around them. Stir them up to run 
with a strong stream to the Sea from whence 
they came — to Thee, O Infinite God, the 
Source of all my good. 




XXVII 

" GLORIOUS IN HOLINESS " 
(Exodus 15.) 

► E are apt to think of God's 
glory as if it were something 
external to Himself, as if it con- 
sisted in the witness borne Him 
by the starry firmament, the fruitful earth, the 
mighty sea ; in the multitude of His heavenly 
courtiers; the service and praise of His 
Church ; the sanctity of His Saints ; the spread 
of His Kingdom upon earth. 

All these, indeed, declare the glory of God, 
but they do not constitute His essential glory, 
the testimony within Himself rendered to 
Him by His Divine Perfections, and by that 
one in particular which most especially de- 
clares His Essence, in whose white light all 
are unified — His Holiness. 

In terms of rapture Moses cries: " Who is 
like to Thee, O Lord, glorious in holiness! " 
(Exod. 15.) And David: '' They shall speak 
of the magnificence of the glory of Thy holi- 
ness." (Ps. 144.) It is the attribute which 
we on earth and still in probation, adore with 

144 



" Glorious in Holiness " 145 

deepest, trembling worship. Like the sun in 
the heavens at noonday, its dazzling glory 
blinds us when we try to look at it, for we 
are sin-stained always, even at our best. 
From first to last we are sinners, penitent, 
indeed, and forgiven, yet for all that, sinners 
still. Failing every morning, failing seven 
times and more every day, how should we be 
able to raise our eyes to the Holiness of God ! 
Even when we have left behind us this 
body of clay, and the soul '* sick with love," 
hastens to the embrace of its Beloved, even 
then love and desire are checked like Mag- 
dalen by the Holiness that is '* a consuming 
fire." (Deut. 4. Heb. 12.) 

. . . Praise to His Name! 
The eager spirit has darted from my hold, 
And, with the intemperate energy of love, 
Flies to the dear feet of Emmanuel; 
But, ere it reach them, the keen sanctity. 
Which with its effluence, like a glory, clothes 
And circles round the Crucified, has seized. 
And scorched, and shriveled it; and now it lies 
Passive and still before the awful Throne. 
O happy suffering soul! for it is safe. 
Consumed, yet quickened by the glance of God.^ 

Isaias heard the Seraphim crying to one 
another: '' Holy, Holy, Holy, the Lord God 
of Hosts." (Isaias 6.) The four living 

^ The Dream of Gerontius. Cardinal Newman. 



146 Heavenwards 

creatures seen by St. John, " rested not day 
and night, saying: Holy, Holy, Holy, Lprd 
God Almighty, who was and who is and who 
is to come." (Apoc. 4.) As if it was the light 
of that dazzling Holiness that most fascinat- 
ed, enraptured and inflamed them, and in- 
spired that cry of everlasting praise, echoed 
daily by the Church on earth in the Holy 
Mass. 

The worship of this Divine Attribute, so 
attractive, yet so terrible, seeing we are what 
we are, has a special fitness in these days. 
Because the Sovereignty of God is so gener- 
ally ignored, the sense of reverence is well 
nigh lost, and the appreciation of the malice 
of sin, outside the Church, and to a great ex- 
tent inside, is dulled to a degree unknown in 
earlier and healthier times. 

Men talk of God nowadays as if He were 
merely a problem for investigation by such 
processes as they choose to adopt, whose ex- 
istence or non-existence being decided by their 
verdict, the case is dismissed without appeal. 
If He exists. He may be allowed a certain 
amount of respect, but no interference with 
the world and its ways. His rights. His Will, 
His commands. His punishments — these were 
burdens and terrors to frighten a superstitious 
age. We have got beyond all that now. 

Everything is open to the criticism of 



" Glorious in Holiness " 147 

learned and ignorant alike ; the awe of tread- 
ing on holy ground is a delusion of the past ; 
not only the revealed but the natural law is 
denied. Sin may be a mistake, a falling short 
of what we owe to ourselves, but as an of- 
fence, an injustice, an outrage to our Maker 
— this conception of it is being lost, and God 
who has their breath in His hand (Dan. 5.) 
is flouted by the creatures formed from the 
dust of the earth. 

Is not reparation to His Holiness called 
for, and will it not have a special acceptance 
now, even when offered by such as we know 
ourselves to be ! 

"We are not Angels, but we may 
Down in earth's comers kneel, 
And multiply sweet acts of love, 
And murmur what we feel.^ 

^ Father Faber. 



XXVIII 



'* THIS IS THE WILL OF GOD CONCERNING 
YOU " 

(I. Thess. 5.) 



HE message brought us every hour 
of our life by every duty, every 
call for sacrifice, every glad sur- 
prise, every disappointment, every 
change of circumstance, every contradiction, 
every trouble arising from health, or weather, 
or the ways of those about us. *' This is the 
Will of God," comes inscribed on every one 
of them; the merit of life consists in seeing 
the inscription and in acting up to it. 

Our misfortune is that we fail to see that 
all these things are the Will of God. In 
health and sickness, and the weather, and 
perhaps in a clear answer to prayer, we man- 
age to recognise the Divine Will. But as to 
disagreeables that come through the mistakes 
or the ill will of others — in these we refuse 
to see anything but the happenings of blind 
chance or the malice of men. 

Theoretically we allow that there is no such 
148 



'' Will of God Concerning You "' 149 

thing as chance, but when trouble comes, 
philosophy and religion go to the winds, and 
the teaching that God works through human 
instruments for our trial and our training, 
we rebel against, and by our conduct prac- 
tically deny. 

Many who do not go to this length, who 
recognise the Will of God even when it acts 
through the agency of others, think they have 
done all that is required of them, all that is 
possible to do, if they accept of visitations 
as their appointed fate, abstain from murmur- 
ing, at least outwardly, and sink down into a 
state of hopeless despondency. 

''What more can I do? " they ask, '' but 
take what cannot be helped, and bear it with- 
out rebellion? " 

Oh, yes ! we can do more than this, a great 
deal more. If we think of the claims of the 
Divine Will upon us, we shall see that not 
resignation only, but humble gratitude and 
childlike hopefulness which smiles through 
its tears, are not beyond our strength, grace 
aided. 

Think of the Sovereignty of the Divine 
Will and of what It implies. What we make 
we look upon as altogether ours, and we re- 
sent any interference with what, by the very 
fact of its existence, is our absolute property. 
Must not at least the same amount of right 



150 Heavenwards 

be allowed to Him who is not Maker only 
but Creator? May He not give and take 
as He wills, in accordance with His eternal 
plan? 

Think, too, of the Wisdom of this Sov- 
ereign Will. It is not as ours, capricious and 
blind. Its designs for us here and hereafter 
have been in the Mind of God eternally, as 
the best possible means for the attainment of 
the happiness for which He has created us. 
Do we question the wisdom of an earthly fa- 
ther when he subjects the child of his hopes 
to the discipline and training which are to 
fit him for his inheritance? '^ For what son 
is there whom the father does not correct? " 
(Heb. 12.) 

And the Will of God is tender. This is 
what is hardest to acknowledge when we are 
smarting beneath a blow. But here again the 
law of earthly love holds good and ought to 
help us. We condemn as false and cruel the 
tenderness that shrinks from inflicting neces- 
sary pain. Why, then, mistrust the infinite 
tenderness of our Heavenly Father in our 
hours of trial? Though we wince and cry, 
He carries through His designs of merciful 
correction, encouraging us the while with 
tenderer words than ever fell from human 
lips: 

^' For a small moment have I forsaken thee, 



" This is the Will of God " 151 

but with great mercies will I gather thee. In 
a moment of indignation have I hid My face 
a little while from thee, but with everlasting 
kindness have I had mercy on thee, said the 
Lord, thy Redeemer. O poor little one, 
tossed by the tempest, without all comfort, 
behold I will lay thy stones in order, and 
will lay thy foundations with sapphires ... 
and make all thy borders of desirable stones." 
(Isaias 54.) 

Shall we not abandon ourselves with trust 
to the Will of God, Sovereign, All-Wise, in- 
finitely Kind? Is it return enough to make 
for Its plans of eternal friendliness, that we 
should abstain from rebellion when they bring 
us a passing smart? " Go with them, doubt- 
ing nothing," (Acts 10.) God says to us of 
His messengers. We have nothing to fear 
from them; we may safely welcome them en- 
tering into the designs of God which they 
bring us — doubting nothing. 




XXIX 

LOVE IN CHASTISEMENT 
"Such as I love I rebuke and chastise." (Apoc. 3.) 

|0W hard it is to realise this with 
the strong practical conviction 
that has an influence upon our 
lives! Speculatively, and in its 
application to others our appreciation of it 
leaves nothing to be desired. In the misfor- 
tunes that befall our friends, those especially 
who we may well believe are among the 
'* such as I love,'' we have no difficulty in see- 
ing the hand of God chastising them and 
training them for the heavenly Kingdom. 

But the case is different when our own turn 
for the training and the chastisement comes. 
Either we look exclusively at secondary 
causes and human instruments, and pursue 
them with our resentment and vengeance, or, 
if we give ear to our charitable friends who 
venture to suggest to us the motives for con- 
solation with which we so readily furnished 
them in their hour of trial, it is only to turn 
away fretfully from the words of comfort 
as not fitting our case. 

152 



Love in Chastisement 153 

" Behold thou hast taught many and thou 
hast strengthened the weary hands. Thy 
words have confirmed them that were stag- 
gering, and thou hast strengthened the trem- 
bling knees. But now the scourge is come 
upon thee and thou faintest; it hath touched 
thee and thou art troubled. Where is thy 
fortitude, thy patience, and the perfection of 
thy ways? " (Job 4.) 

More tenderly, indeed, than the exasperat- 
ing friends of Job do ours press upon us mo- 
tives for comfort, but, it may be, with unavail- 
ing kindness. 

'' True," we say, ** trials are fatherly chas- 
tisements from God in the case of the Saints. 
It is easy enough for them to accept troubles 
from His hand and to profit by them, but I 
cannot look at things in this light. It is my 
unfortunate character or surroundings or, 
worse still, my sins past or present, my gen- 
eral unsatisfactoriness in the service of God 
that brings all this upon me." 

Well, granting this — what then? 

There is a startling rebuke in Scripture 
addressed to one who is described by God 
Himself much as some of us might be inclined 
to describe ourselves — " miserable and poor 
and blind and naked." ** I know thy works 
that thou art neither hot nor cold. . . . Be- 
cause thou art lukewarm and neither hot nor 



154 Heavenwards 

cold, I will begin to vomit thee out of my 
mouth." (Apoc. 3.) 

Then, following close upon these terrific 
words, is the assurance to the trembling soul 
that it is loved, dearly loved in spite of its 
misery — and therefore warned and corrected : 
'* Such as I love I rebuke and chastise. Be 
zealous, therefore, and do penance." 

It is just, then, these very indifferent serv- 
ants of God, with whom we rank ourselves, 
to whom the hard words and hard trials come 
as proofs of love. 

Our guides in the spiritual life tell us that 
whenever reflection upon sin past or present 
has a depressing effect upon us, lessens our 
trust in God, and leaves our soul limp and 
spiritless, we may take it for granted that it 
is not the work of the Spirit of God but the 
product of Satan's malice and of our own self- 
love. He is perpetually suggesting to us that 
God is angry with us, that we have deserved 
all this, and so on. An easy but disconcert- 
ing answer is to admit cheerfully all that he 
alleges. 

'' We indeed, justly," said the poor thief 
amid the terrible onslaughts of despair and 
death. It was the humble avowal of the sins 
of a lifetime and an acceptance of all the pun- 
ishment they had merited. But he did not 
stop there. Enlightened by grace, he went on 



LiOve in Chastisement 155 

to make reparation by a most glorious con- 
fession of the Divinity of his fellow Sufferer, 
and to trust himself entirely to His remem- 
brance and mercy. Let us follow his ex- 
ample. 

" You have brought this punishment on 
yourself," whispers the tempter. '' There was 
that unkind story with which you entertained 
your visitors yesterday; and sloth in rising 
this morning; and the angry retort just now, 
all the worse because you had just come from 
Mass and Communion." 

'' Quite true," we reply, *' and well put. 
I am glad to have these things recalled to 
mind. And I am sorry for them, and humble 
myself before God for them, and with His 
help will be more careful in future. And 
now, what next? " 

If this is difficult, and we feel the waves of 
discouragement tossing and filling the boat, 
we must bale them out briskly or they will 
sink us. No matter what right they can show 
to be there, they must be got rid of at once or 
it will be all over with us. If every hour of 
the day we had fallen into grievous sin, all 
the more need would there be for a resolute 
stand against despondency. And if disaster 
such as this will not warrant it, how much 
less will the seven falls which is the daily ex- 
perience of even the just man. 



156 Heavenwards 

It is not so much the falls as the discour- 
agement which follows them, out of which 
the devil is prepared to make capital. If we 
rise at once, and with an act of humble sor- 
row and fresh trust throw ourselves anew 
upon God: *' Lord, remember me. I have 
sinned, but I am sorry," and do this again 
and again as often as we fall, we shall not 
only recover our ground, but little by little 
make headway and reach the goal at last. 

It is a poor argument, then, against trial 
being a loving chastisement in our case, to say 
that we are among the commonplace and 
faulty servants of God. It is precisely these 
whom He calls: " such as I love," and who, 
after the Father's chastisement, may look for 
the Father's embrace — and reward. 




XXX 

" OPEN TO ME ^' 

(Cant. 5.) 

**If any man open to Me the door, I will come in to him and will 
sup with him and he with Me." (Apoc. 3.) 

'*I was a stranger and you took me in." (S. Matth. 23.) 

JOW charming is the Divine cour- 
tesy of these words! bearing no 
faintest shade of the condescen- 
sion that honours with a visit, but 
only the solicitations of a friend, or the hum- 
ble gratitude of a guest. '' You took Me in." 
As if He were beholden to us for shelter and 
sympathy and kindness, and would let us 
know His appreciation of it all. 

As if — we say. But there can be no make- 
believe in the very Truth. His courtesy can 
never be what ours too often is, mere simu- 
lation of kindness. When He says : '* My 
delights are to be with the children of men," 
(Prov. 8.) we must take the sweet words lit- 
erally, and store them away in memory and 
heart among the other mysteries of His in- 
comprehensible charity. 

He does love to be with us ; the proofs are 
too numerous and incontestable to be called 

157 



158 Heavenwards 

in question. Infinite distance was not too far 
to travel when the Word was made flesh and 
dwelt amongst us. And, once in our midst, 
how completely He made Himself at home! 
Not, indeed, Ijy surrounding Himself with 
what men covet — His foothold on earth, a 
manger for a cradle, a cross for a deathbed, 
was as scant as even Omnipotence could make 
it — but by sharing our joys and our sorrows, 
though in unequal measure, thereby to estab- 
lish with us that fellowship of interests which 
only the experience of life's ups and downs 
can bring about. 

He loves to be with us, and does not hesi- 
tate to show His satisfaction. See the readi- 
ness with which during His Public Life He 
accepted hospitality, not only when it was 
genuine as at Cana but when its character was 
more than doubtful as in the house of the 
Pharisee. Twice at least He was the Guest 
of that despised and detested class, the publi- 
cans. ^^ And it came to pass as He was sit- 
ting at meat in the house, behold many pub- 
licans and sinners came and sat down with 
Jesus and His disciples." 

What a spectacle for the Holy Angels was 
that feast in the house of Matthew ! the Lord 
before whom they cover their faces with their 
wings and sing continually: *' Holy, Holy, 
Holy," in the midst of " extortioners, unjust," 



" Open to Me '' 159 

notorious sinners, not overawing them by His 
presence but attracting and charming them by 
the graciousness of His conversation and 
ways. 

We may note in passing how often the 
homely time of ** sitting at meat " was chosen 
by Him both before and after the Resurrec- 
tion for some of His sweetest words to us. 
When the Pharisees in Matthew's house took 
scandal at the familiarity of the Master with 
such disreputable companions, He said: ^' they 
that are in health need not the physician but 
they that are sick. ... I am not come to call 
the just but sinners." (S. Matth. 9.) When, 
as he entered the house of Zaccheus, who '' re- 
ceived Him with joy, all murmured saying 
He was gone to be the guest of a man that 
was a sinner. He answered: The Son of Man 
is come to seek and to save that which was 
lost." And when, as He sat at meat in the 
house of the Pharisee, Magdalen came and 
anointed and kissed His feet, He said in her 
defence: *' Many sins are forgiven her be- 
cause she hath loved much . . . thy sins are 
forgiven thee, go in peace." Her twice re- 
peated act of hospitality is one of the incidents 
recorded by all the Evangelists, a fulfillment 
of His grateful promise that wherever the 
Gospel should be preached it should be told in 
remembrance of her. 



160 Heavenwards 

Wherever our Lord was received on earth, 
He left signs of the acceptableness to Him of 
the invitation. Nay, He anticipated invita- 
tion and invited Himself: " Zaccheus, make 
haste and come down for this day I must 
abide in thy house." No sooner has the cen- 
turion mentioned his sick servant than there is 
the prompt answer: "I will come and heal 
him." (S. Matth. 8.) 

How keenly, then. His sensitive Heart 
must have felt coldness and neglect. What 
He must have suffered in those last days of 
His preaching and miracles when nightfall 
brought no friendly offer of shelter and hos- 
pitality : when, uninvited to any of the homes 
He had made so glad, He left the City, and 
took His way wearily over Olivet, to seek in 
the little household of Bethany where He was 
always welcome, the kindness denied Him in 
Jerusalem. 

Yes, He loves to be with us. Once only 
do we find Him declining, or seeming to de- 
cline an invitation. At the door of the little 
inn at Emmaus '* He made as though He 
would go further " and the disciples had to 
use a gentle violence to detain Him. ** Stay 
with us," they said, '' for it is towards even- 
ing and the day is now far spent." What 
wonder they did not recognise in the stranger 
who had to be constrained, the Master who so 



''Open to Me'' 161 

gladly accepted hospitality " all the time," 
says St. Peter, ^' that the Lord Jesus came in 
and went out amongst us." (Acts i.) 

There was no real unwillingness ; it was but 
a device of love, one of those playfulnesses 
of His Risen Life which reveal to us a new 
side in the human beauty of His divinely 
beautiful character, one of those acts by which 
He restrained for an instant the eagerness of 
His Sacred Heart for Its fuller flow of lov- 
ing-kindness to Its beloved. 

He is the same now; His delights are still 
to be with us; let us receive Him joyfully in 
whatever guise He presents Himself. 

'* Behold, I stand at the door and knock." 
(Apoc. 3.) Who would not open to Him 
gladly if through the casement were seen the 
halo round His Head or the wounded Hands 
and Feet ! But the praise and reward when 
He comes again in His glory are for the faith 
that knew and welcomed Him when He came 
to it in disguise. " I was a Stranger — and 
you took Me in." He comes to us in many 
an unexpected garb; we have to learn to see 
Him in His representatives — in the inquirer 
whom we may help to a knowledge of Cath- 
olic truth ; in the young girl who needs friend- 
ly interest and sympathy to enable her to 
withstand the difficulties or dangers of her sur- 
roundings; in the child who cries to us for 



162 Heavenwards 

the shelter and training of a Catholic Home 
where its faith will be saved and its feet set 
on the way to Heaven. 

How often and under what varied forms 
the Divine Stranger presents Himself to us! 
Let us be on the alert to recognise Him. 
Often, as heretofore, '' there is no beauty in 
Him nor comeliness . . . that we should be 
desirous of Him. . . . His look as it were 
hidden and despised, whereupon we esteemed 
Him not." (Isaias 52.) But Faith and 
Love are quick to see Him beneath any dis- 
guise, and cry out with St. John : " It is the 
Lord!" (S.John 21.) 

" Let the charity of the brotherhood abide 
in you," says St. Paul. . . . '' And hospital- 
ity do not forget, for by this some being un- 
awares have entertained Angels." (Heb. 
13.) Happy we, if we discover one day that 
we have entertained the Lord of Angels un- 
awares, happy to hear from His lips: " I was 
a Stranger and you took Me in. . . . Come, 
blessed of My Father!" 



XXXI 



'' THE SON OF MAN " 




^S this His fittest title of whom it 
was said as His coming into the 
world: ''Let all the Angels of 
God adore Him?" (Heb. i.) 
Is He not '' God of God, Light of Light, very 
God of very God," '' the brightness of His 
glory and the figure of His substance, whom 
He hath appointed heir of all things, by 
whom also He made the world? " (Heb. i.) 
Yes '' upon His head are many diadems, 
and He hath a name which no man knoweth 
but Himself . . . and His name is called, 
THE WORD OF GOD." (Apoc. 19.) 
But his own Name for Himself, His Name 
of predilection, the Name which is to us the 
fullest revelation of His character, is '' the 
Son of Man." It is dear to Him above others 
because more than any other it brings Him 
into the midst of the human family, makes 
Him one of us, entitled to share with us the 
experiences of life, to have His part in its 
interests, its work, its joys and sorrows and 

163 



164 Heavenwards 

failures and triumphs, its home affections and 
its friendships, its pains of body and mind. 

As Son of Man, He knows all these in a 
new way, the way of experience, a way that 
brings Him into touch with us as nothing else 
could do. It is the way that Love seeks at 
any cost. Union with the Beloved is its first 
need, to satisfy which it will break through 
all barriers, run all risks, endure all labour 
and anguish. What a distance from Heaven 
to earth, from the throne of His glory to the 
Altar and the Communion rail ! Love counts 
it as nothing, and were there further depths 
to which it might descend to bring about a 
more intimate union with us, it would not 
shrink from them. 

As Son of Man, He has the strongest of 
claims upon our allegiance, our sympathy, 
our confidence, and our love. For as Man 
He is the Head of our race, our King and 
Leader, or Elder Brother. We must be proud 
of Him, we must follow Him, we must lean 
on Him, and by His hands pass to the Father 
our poor service of adoration, praise and 
thanksgiving, of propitiation and petition. 
'' By whom the Angels praise Thy Majesty," 
(Preface of the Mass.) how much more His 
lowly human brethren ! '' Through Him and 
with Him, and in Him," says the Church 
again, "is to Thee, God the Father AI- 



" The Son of Man '' 165 

mighty, in the unity of the Holy Ghost, all 
honour and glory." 

As our King, the most devoted loyalty is 
due to Him. Not only His commands but 
His preferences should be law to us. His 
enemies. His friends. His interests should be 
ours; whatever belongs to His service con- 
cerns us intimately and should find us ready 
for personal labour and sacrifice. 

As our Elder Brother, He claims our deep- 
est and most reverent affection, and absolute 
trust. Through Him the rights of sonship 
are ours. He takes us by the hand and leads 
us to the Father. *' My Father, and your 
Father, My God and your God." (S. John 
20.) All that He can communicate of the 
prerogatives which are His by Nature, He 
shares with us, the adopted children of God. 
For this is no empty title. St. John in his 
first Epistle, St. Paul in his Epistles to Ro- 
mans, Galatians, and Ephesians, speak in ex- 
ultation of the reality of this adoption! 
'' Dearly beloved, we are now the sons of 
God. . . . Behold what manner of charity 
the Father hath bestowed upon us, that we 
should be called and should be the sons of 
God." (I. S. John 3.) "They shall be 
called the sons of the living God," (Rom. 9.) 
'' for you are all the children of God by faith 
in Christ Jesus," (Galat. 3.) "and if sons, 



166 Heavenwards 

heirs also." (Rom. 8, Galat. 4.) " And be- 
cause you are sons, God hath sent the Spirit 
of His Son into your hearts, cryiny: 'Abba, 
Father!'" (Galat. 4.) 

Not till we take our place in the Court of 
Heaven, our Father's House, and know by 
experience '' the glory of the children of 
God," (Rom. 8.) shall we grasp at all ade- 
quately the significance of those words which 
the Church never wearies of repeating: 
Through Jesus Christ our Lord. 

Then at last we shall understand what the 
Son of Man is to us. How completely He 
has " blotted out the handwriting that was 
against us." (Coloss. 2.) How he has more 
than repaired our losses, and the havoc made 
by sin ; raised our nature incomparably higher 
than the height from which it fell, and so 
reinstated us in our right to the heavenly in- 
heritance that we enter His Kingdom as chil- 
dren, not as servants or strangers. How He 
is not only Redeemer and Saviour in the past 
to the whole human race, but an Advocate 
this hour in Heaven for us one by one, '' ever 
living to make intercession for us." (Heb. 
7.) How He is to every one of us the Source 
of all good actual and to come, our recon- 
ciliation, our peace, our consolation in trial, 
our strength in temptation, our victory, our 
reward. It is His life flowing into us in our 



" The Son of Man " 167 

Communions that gives dignity and value to 
our life, and merit to our least actions, and 
suffering, and prayer. As " most dear chil- 
dren " (Ephes. 5.) we may confidently lift 
little offerings to our Father in Heaven, and 
be sure of His acceptance of them — through 
Jesus Christ our Lord. For His sake we may 
come with confidence to the Throne of Grace 
with our troubles and our needs. For His 
merits we are heard and helped, for ** how 
hath He not with Him given us all things? " 
(Rom. 8.) It is as His members, united to 
Him by charity, that we are to share His 
glory in eternity. 

Through Jesus Christ our Lord. To dwell 
for an instant on these words from time to 
time as we conclude our prayer, in order to 
recall what Jesus is to our human race, and 
personally to each of us one by one — might 
not this be accepted as a reparation for wan- 
dering thoughts and coldness, and be a token 
of gratitude and love His Heart would wel- 
come ? 




XXXII 

*' THESE THREE " 

*Now there remain faith, hope, and charity, these three.** 

(I. Cor. 13.) 

^HEN we come to Petition in our 
thanksgiving after Communion, 
it may happen that we are so ab- 
sorbed by some pressing need, 
spiritual or temporal, that there is no ques- 
tion as to what we shall ask. An obstinate 
temptation besets us and we take it to our 
Lord for His aid to overcome it. Or we 
want light in face of an important step, e. g., 
a life's choice to be made, advice to be given 
as to the career of another, and the like. Or, 
stunned by a sudden blow or loss, we crouch 
at His feet, and without word or prayer lay 
our heart in its agony before Him for His 
pity and His help. 

But when the sense of a special need does 
not press, we may, unless we are on our guard, 
neglect Petition altogether, to our very great 
loss. Might it not be well to have some 
standing request always ready? 

There are three virtues for which the 

168 



'' These Three '' 169 

Church Is always praying, the acts of which 
are from time to time binding on us ; they en- 
ter into the preparation for every Sacrament ; 
they should spring to our lips in time of 
temptation; they are to be our safeguard in 
the hour of death. '^ There remain faith, 
hope, and charity, these three," says St. Paul, 
thus singling them out for special attention; 
these three which would make all the differ- 
ence in our lives if they came to be the spring 
of our thoughts and words and acts; these 
three, which, possessed in an eminent degree, 
constitute sanctity. 

St. Paul (Heb. ii.) gives a magnificent 
litany of the achievements of Faith, follow- 
ing up the praise It received from the lips of 
Christ Himself. It was the condition re- 
quired by our Lord when the blind, the deaf, 
the possessed were to be healed, or the dead 
to be raised to life: '' If thou canst believe, 
all things are possible to them that believe." 
(S. Mark 9.) '' Did I not say to thee that 
if thou believe thou shalt see the glory of 
God? " (S. John II.) " And He wrought 
not many miracles there because of their un- 
belief." (S. Matth. 13.) 

Unbelief is the chief fault He reprehends 
in His disciples: ^' Where is your faith?" 
(S. Luke 8.) ''Why are you fearful, O ye 
of little faith! " (S. Matth. 8) '' O thou of 



170 Heavenwards 

little faith, why didst thou doubt?" (S. 
Matth. 14.) 

On the other hand, the faith of those who 
were not of His sheep drew from Him a cry 
of admiration: *' O woman, great is thy 
faith!" (S. Matth. 15.) '^ I have not 
found so great faith in Israel." (S. Matth. 
8.) He tells us that if we have faith we shall 
remove mountains. '* All things whatsoever 
you shall ask in prayer believing, you shall 
receive." (S. Matth. 21.) 

Well might the Twelve who were with 
Him day by day and saw the wonders 
wrought by faith, and heard His delighted 
praise of it, cry out to Him: '' Lord, increase 
our faith! " (S. Luke 17.) Well may we 
who have Him as our Guest when we will, 
make with earnestness and persistence the 
same prayer. Often in preparation for Com- 
munion we seek to excite our devotion, and 
fail; if we tried to increase our faith we 
should succeed better, for faith brings de- 
votion after it as the needle draws the thread. 

Hope springs straight from faith, depends 
absolutely on it, and is so like it that it is 
hard at times to distinguish them. As an 
imperative duty laid on every one of us, on 
every prodigal no matter how far he has 
strayed from His Father's home, Hope is a 
marvellous revelation of the character of 



'' These Three '' 171 

God. That we should have been allowed to 
hope would have been much, seeing what we 
have been and what we are; but to be com- 
manded under a penalty — is not this holding 
the prize low down within our reach, that we 
may run with the more eagerness and assur- 
ance. No number of sins, however grave, no 
relapses, however frequent and unblushing, 
are any excuse in His eyes for a diminution 
of our Hope. What the most enduring of 
our friends would resent. He exacts. We 
must return to Him each time with the same 
trust, and with full confidence that we shall 
be forgiven. Miserable as we know our 
service to be, we are to look to Him with ab- 
solute reliance on His mercy for all needful 
grace, for perseverance, for our crown at last. 
O God, what must Thou be in Thyself, to 
treat us with goodness such as this ! 

Charity will be strong if Hope is strong. 
To love Him for Himself who shows Him- 
self so worthy of all love, is a sweet and easy 
task. As Faith and Hope blend so as to be 
at times indistinguishable, so does Hope melt 
into Love, real love that shows itself '' not 
in word and in tongue but in deed and in 
truth; " (I. S. John 3.) in self-sacrifice ; in the 
joyful service of others for His sake; in con- 
cern for all that regards His glory. When 
this Love is gained, all is gained; all the dan- 



172 Heavenwards 

gers and difficulties of the spiritual life can 
be easily overcome; all the heights of sanc- 
tity are within its reach. '' Love, and do 
what you will," the Saints tell us, for '' Love 
is swift, strong, faithful, circumspect, long- 
suffering, courageous. It feels no burden, 
values no labour, would willingly do more 
than it can, complains not of impossibility 
because it conceives that it may and can do 
all things." (Imit. Bk. IIL Ch. 5.) 

These three — ^what a difference the posses- 
sion of them in an eminent degree would 
make in our lives! Can we do better than 
ask with earnestness and perseverance when 
the Giver of all grace is with us as our Guest ? 



XXXIII 

DETAILS 

HESE it is which give vividness 
and interest to a picture, a de- 
scription, a narrative; which lay 

^ hold on the imagination and sink 

into the memory. It is in the elaboration 
and perfection of detail that professional 
work scores above that of the amateur, that 
all excellent results are attained in every de- 
partment of labour — mechanical, artistic, lit- 
erary, scientific. 

And spiritual. If we want to improve the 
general character of our service of God, we 
must improve the details — our prayers, morn- 
ing and night, and each of these again in de- 
tail; the fervour with which I offer to God 
the work of the day in my morning prayer; 
the honesty of my self-examination at night; 
in my confessions my care to make a good 
act of contrition and purpose of amendment; 
in my Communions, earnestness in the usual 
acts of preparation and thanksgiving, pos- 
sibly, too, in my resolution not to stay away 
through sloth, coldness, the fear of what more 

173 



174 Heavenwards 

frequent Communion might entail ; in the way 
I hear Mass. Is it daily Mass? If not, why 
not? My remembrance of the four ends for 
which the Holy Sacrifice is offered — Adora- 
tion, Thanksgiving, Propitiation, Petition — 
my prayer for the living and the dead, my 
reasonable care to guard against distractions 
— what about all these? 

So also in my relations with my neigh- 
bours; I must go into detail. Do I often 
think how I can make others happy? Often 
examine my conversations and their results? 
Have I a horror of rash judgments and mis- 
chief-making? Am I ingenious in finding a 
good word for the absent? Am I faithful 
in keeping secrets of trust? Am I fond of 
gossip and given to encourage it in others? 
Do I encourage detraction by inquisitiveness ? 
Do I ever let children hear uncharitable talk, 
or conversation calculated to lessen their re- 
spect for those they are bound to revere ? Am 
I patient and courteous with daily companions 
and ready to make sacrifices for the sake of 
peace? Do I pray for charity towards those 
against whom I feel illwill or who annoy or 
oppose me? Am I too exacting, unwilling 
to allow for mistakes or misunderstanding? 
Do I exercise self-control when I feel hurt 
and inclined to make an angry reply? Do I 
try to look at the best side of those I dislike ? 



Details 175 

Do I think more of what I suffer from others 
than of what others suffer from me? Do I 
try to comfort those in trouble ? What do I 
set apart for the poor? 

And so again in our own spiritual advance- 
ment. If I find selfishness at the root of all 
or most of my misdeeds, and such a discovery 
is quite possible, I must make an object lesson 
of this ugly monster as it shows itself in the 
details of my life. Does it habitually make 
me fail in the imperative duty of rising 
promptly at the appointed time ? Is the secret 
of my infrequent Communions the trouble of 
going oftener, or the obligation it might 
bring of sacrificing this or that friendship, or 
dangerous self-indulgence? Do I neglect 
prayer because of its difficulties and the re- 
straint it imposes? Does selfishness show it- 
self in my neglect of duties for which I am 
responsible at home or elsewhere, or in care- 
lessness as to the irksome details of my work, 
in the absence of anything like hard work in 
my life, the preponderance of pleasure over 
work, or in idleness or extravagance ? 

If candour compels me to believe that hu- 
mility is what is wanted in my thoughts, 
words, and general conduct, I must again go 
into detail in my purpose of amendment. To 
say: ''Ah, yes, very true, that is my need, 
and henceforth I will be proud in nothing and 



176 Heavenwards 

humble In everything," is no resolution at 
all but a mere velliety. But to say and to 
resolve, '' I will turn to the thought of my 
own sins when tempted to vanity; I will 
check a censorious spirit of criticism quite un- 
becoming in such a one as I ; I will try to take 
slights patiently, and refrain from insisting 
on my own opinion, remembering how often 
my judgement has led me astray; I will hum- 
ble myself before God whenever I kneel down 
to pray " — resolutions such as these if perse- 
vered in will certainly bring about the need- 
ed change. 

To return to the subject of prayer. 

Here, above all, we are apt to overlook 
the importance of detail. If we take for the 
subject of our meditation the Passion as a 
whole, we shall find it far too vast to grasp. 
It will not appeal to us or help us to appre- 
ciate what that suffering must have been and 
what our return of love should be, nearly so 
effectually as to take one point at a time and 
dwell on that, studying its details and giving 
each time to impress mind, imagination, and 
heart. 

Have we ever thought, as we looked at a 
crucifix, of the pain of the scourging still 
fresh, and renewed by the rough dragging of 
the Sacred Body over the hard wood? Yet 
this, one only of the many terrible details. 



Details 177 

did not escape the loving mindfulness of a 
little child who looked pityingly, as he sat 
on his mother's lap, at the crucifix she held 
before him, and laid his finger thoughtfully 
and tenderly on the wounds in hands and feet. 
Suddenly he exclaimed: " And, mother, shan't 
we be sorry, too, for the pain in His poor 
back?" 

It is details in meditation, and details, too, 
in our vocal prayers that make them a reality 
and therefore a spiritual force. Just as one 
suffering on the cross, the disjointing of the 
limbs, the hanging on the wounds, the thirst, 
will help us to our act of contrition before 
confession more efficaciously than a wider 
range of subject, and as to take one word at 
a time of a vocal prayer and dwell upon it, 
impresses us more and improves indefinitely 
the saying of that prayer in future, so will the 
same attention to detail help to extend those 
Acts of Faith, Hope, Charity, Contrition, 
Humility, and Desire, which form so large 
a portion of the Church's public prayer and 
of our preparation for the Sacraments. 

To the thousands who watch the aeroplanes 
soar aloft and steer their way through the 
air with the directness and speed of an ex- 
press train, the marvel is how the bird men 
can keep up like that, so steadily and so long. 
And we wonder at the prolonged prayer of 



178 Heavenwards 

the Saints, at their hours and hours of con- 
verse with God. No doubt they had that 
gift of prayer which made this possible; but, 
no doubt, too, they won that gift by prayer, 
by their own persevering effort, for here as 
everywhere, God helps those who help them- 
selves. 

" But how," some may say, " can we make 
more out of Acts of Faith, Hope, and Char- 
ity than we find in our books ? ' My God, I 
firmly believe all that Thou hast revealed 
and Thy Church proposes to my belief ' — 
that is all there is to be said about it." 

Not quite all. Suppose I am going to Com- 
munion and happen to have some trouble or 
anxiety on my mind, I may add: " I believe 
most firmly that Thou art coming to me to- 
day, the same Jesus of Nazareth who wast 
so full of tender sympathy for all in trouble. 
I believe that my distress will touch Thy 
Sacred Heart, for Thou art not changed, 
dear Lord, since the days of Thy life on 
earth." Here Faith, as is its wont, has melt- 
ed into Hope, and will easily melt into Char- 
ity. " I love and thank Thee for coming to 
me to-day in my anxiety and pain, to counsel, 
help, and strengthen me, and do for me and 
mine as Thou knowest is best. My God, I 
know that all that happens to me is either di- 
rectly sent or permitted by Thee. The act, 



Details 179 

then, that has hurt me so, was allowed by 
Thee as a little trial since I must have trial 
and am not strong enough for harder ones. 
I wish I had remembered this and borne it 
better when the pain was fresh and the merit 
to be had, most. Help me to see my oppor- 
tunities quickly and to profit by them to the 
full. Let me follow Thy counsel to Thy be- 
loved St. Catherine — accept daily trials at 
once and generously from Thy Hand, and 
then turn my mind from them ; so shall I keep 
my soul in peace." 

In this way prayer becomes what it is meant 
to be — not an act of official service, formal, 
and brief — but a continual turning to God as 
to an ever-present Friend with the needs and 
sorrows and shortcomings of the hour, and 
with the trust that such recourse betokens 
and begets. 




XXXIV 

" WHAT WILT THOU THAT I DO FOR THEE? '* 

(Thanksgiving after Communion.) 

JO two of us make it alike, and that 
is best for us which keeps us most 
closely united with our Divine 
Guest during the precious time 
He is with us. 

The first Acts with all of us will be Adora- 
tion, Thanksgiving, and Love, and, not con- 
tent with our own poor efforts, many of us 
will call for help upon those who see Him 
face to face. We may offer Him the Adora- 
tion, Thanksgiving and Love of His blessed 
Mother, of the holy Angels, of the Saints 
most devoted to the Hidden God. 

Or we may offer Him in compensation for 
our poor distracted thanksgiving now, that 
which without effort on our part will endure 
throughout eternity, impetuous, irrepressible, 
as that of our first hour in Heaven, employ- 
ing every power of our soul in its immensely 
increased capacity and strength, the reward 
of the poor and often difficult thanksgivings 
of earth. 

180 



" What Wilt Thou That I Do? '' 181 

If we like, we may lead up to our Lord 
as His vassals, to pay Him homage and ten- 
der Him service, our memory, understanding 
and will, begging Him to possess them and 
rule them and work through them, so that 
their action may be not so much theirs as 
His. 

We may ask Him to claim for Himself 
more place in our memory, a more frequent 
and loving remembrance of Him as the hours 
of the day go by, that we may fall back nat- 
urally so to say on the thought of Him in the 
intervals of our various duties, to renew our 
morning intention of doing all and suffering 
all for His sake, to find contentment in Him 
however things fall out, and to increase our 
love by the aspirations which, easily and 
swiftly made, yet bear eternal fruit. 

We may offer Him our understanding, to 
be more enlightened on this or that mystery 
of the Faith, on our duties and responsibili- 
ties, on the difference between the things of 
time and those of eternity. 

And, chief of all, we may offer Him our 
will on the regulation of which all our rela- 
tions with Him depend. If we have feelings 
of devotion we may well be thankful for they 
help very much. If we have none, we must 
not be disquieted for they are not necessary. 
The will is what God looks to, and this is 



182 Heavenwards 

always in our power. But It is weak and way- 
ward, and shies at every difficulty. Our Lord 
comes mainly on its account, to give it 
strength of purpose, vigour in action, con- 
stancy under trial, wisdom in choice, gener- 
osity in sacrifice, perseverance in monotonous 
duty, endurance to the end. 

But we must ask for all this. Have we 
ever noticed how much more readily we ask 
for light than for strength? perhaps because 
we imagine the first will involve no great 
suffering, or is further removed from it, 
whilst strength is asked in view of a cross 
directly facing us, or of an effort to be called 
for presently. We act as if God were more 
liberal of light than of strength. When we 
know His Will, instead of thanking Him and 
going on to ask for courage to carry it out, 
we sit down and cry because we feel so weak. 
Yet God only gives the first grace for the 
sake of the second. He never means to leave 
us half way through a trouble, but He does 
mean us to ask for the help we need. And 
after Communion is the time for asking: 
*' This is your hour," He says to us then, 
** Ask, and you shall receive." 

Besides the powers of our souls, we may 
bring to Him our desires. How they run 
riot! Over a thousand fields they wander, 
without reference to the journey's end, with- 



'' What Wilt Thou That I Do? " 183 

out any nobler purpose than self -gratification, 
wasting on baubles the energy and affection 
of our immortal souls. It is hard to control 
them, but our Lord will take them in hand 
when He comes. He will teach us to hold 
them firmly within their proper bounds — the 
Holy Will of God, that shelter in which we 
should rest like a bird in its nest. All It con- 
tains is good for us ; everything outside, how- 
ever attractive, is not only beyond our needs 
but would prove harmful to us. 

We may bring to Him our anxieties and 
our hopes, our resolutions, our failures of 
the day before, perhaps a victory here and 
there, a perplexing question to be solved, a 
difficult letter to be written — ^what, indeed 
may we not bring! It is our Friend who is 
with us, keenly interested in all we tell Him, 
glad as in the days of His life on earth to 
be led about wherever He is needed, wherever 
His healing hand and Omnipotent word and 
tender pitying glance may do their work. He 
is the same now as when He was to be found 
among the sick and poor and in the house of 
mourning, with the same yearning to help us 
every one — but we must ask, we must ask. 
We receive not, because we ask not, or be- 
cause, says St. James, we *' ask amiss" (S. 
James 4.), that is, without the necessary dis- 
positions, or for things that would not profit 



184 Heavenwards 

us. *' If any of you want wisdom," he says, 
*' let him ask of God who giveth to all abun- 
dantly and upbraideth not, and it shall be 
given him." (S. James i.) He takes for 
granted that our prayer will not be for the 
necessaries of this life alone, but for the '' bet- 
ter gifts " for which St. Paul would have us 
zealous (I. Cor. 12.) '^ the things by which 
we truly live." (Mass for 6th Sunday after 
Epiphany.) 

What childish requests some of ours will 
seem when seen in the light of eternity ! what 
poor paltry gifts to have taken up all our 
thoughts when we were in the audience cham- 
ber of the King of kings, or rather, when He 
was giving audience in our chamber, enjoy- 
ing our hospitality, and therefore under an 
obligation to show Himself royally bountiful. 
'' Why," we shall say — if not in Heaven at 
least in Purgatory, the land of vain regrets 
— '' oh why did we not profit better by 
that time of grace, to secure the enduring 
treasures that might have been had for the 
asking — strength in temptation, light to see 
our way. Wisdom, Counsel, Fortitude, Holy 
Fear — Gifts, that would have made all the 
difference to our life on earth and to our 
eternal life in Heaven! 

Giveth to all abundantly — to all, there- 
fore to me, and abundantly, especially at this 



'' What Wilt Thou That I Do? '' 185 

'' acceptable time " when having given Him- 
self He will surely give us all things. 

Upbraiding not — welcome reassuring 
words. The poor who present themselves 
confidently the first or second time at the rich 
man's gate, fear to be thought importunate 
and to meet rebuff when they come again and 
again the winter through. The friend who 
has been shabby with his friend hesitates to 
ask a kindness next time he is in need, and 
if he ventures, fears the word of well de- 
served expostulation or reproach. So it is 
with us — but not with God. We have no 
reproach to fear w^hen having thrown away 
His grace we ask for more, when having 
shown ourselves stingy or cowardly, self- 
seeking in any of our wonted ways, we come 
to Him for comfort and for help. 

Petition to such a One ought to be an easy 
task. Yet, unless we are on our guard we 
may often omit it in our Acts of thanksgiving 
after Communion, and let the King take back 
with Him the gifts He meant to leave. 

*'What wilt thou that I do for thee?'* 
He asks with Divine kindness each time He 
comes — we must have our answer ready. 




XXXV 

** DOMINE NON SUM DIGNUS ! " 

jERHAPS the prevalent feeling 
of most of us about our Commu- 
nions, is distress at the callous- 
ness which nothing can rouse or 
remove, neither the marvels there wrought 
for us, nor the love there testified us, nor the 
abundance of treasure there laid up for us. 

On the other hand, some of us are pos- 
sessed by so strong a sense of our unworthi- 
ness, that it keeps us from the Communion 
rails altogether. Instead of saying " Come 
Lord Jesus," with St. John, they cry out with 
St. Peter: '' Depart from me, O Lord, for I 
am a sinner." 

Peter knew his Master well enough to dare 
to make such a prayer. A humble, trustful 
acknowledgement of his unworthiness was the 
last thing in the world likely to drive Christ 
from him. His lips said '* Depart," whilst 
his heart held fast Him whom he loved, for 
whom he had left all things. If our " Depart 
from me, O Lord," or our '' Domine non 
sum dignus," is said in this spirit of trustful 

186 




THE COMMUNION OF THE APOSTLES 



" Domine non sum dignus! " 187 

love, it will not keep us away from Christ 
but drive us to Him. True humility draws 
near and holds out its hand for the help it 
needs. It is discouragement, the devil's coun- 
terfeit of humility — and a very bad one — 
that keeps aloof. 

The devil is a cleverer logician than we are, 
but a good way of worsting him in argument 
is to admit his premises and deny his conclu- 
sion. '' Lord, I am not worthy, therefore I 
will stay away," would be his suggestion. It 
sounds plausible enough, but being an ene- 
my's, it is at least open to suspicion, and it is 
in direct opposition to the teaching of the 
Church and of Scripture: *' Since we have no 
merit to plead, assist us by Thy protection." ^ 
'' What shall I do, whither shall I fly but to 
Thee, my God, for I have sinned exceedingly 
in my life." (Office for the Dead.) If we 
have sinned, if we are unworthy, what refuge 
have we but Him; who else can forgive, 
and reassure, and comfort and strengthen us? 
'* Lord, to whom shall we go? " we must all 
say to Him with Peter. And His answer will 
be: *' Come to Me all . . . all you who are 
heavy burdened come, and I will refresh 
you." 

True humility drives us to Christ not away 
from Him. To think and act otherwise, and 

* Secret. Second Sunday of Advent. 



188 Heavenwards 

be so fixed in our view that neither God nor 
man can move us, would be a species of hu- 
mility to be found neither in Heaven nor on 
earth, one that neither God nor man would 
recognise. 

How different from this is the simplicity 
which here as in all things else follows the 
lead of the Church, listens to the Voice of the 
Chief Shepherd and goes where he leads; 
which, conscious on the one hand of its weak- 
ness and need, and on the other, of the dig- 
nity of the Sacrament, thanks God for the 
distinct expression of His Will in these later 
times, for the clear statement of the few dis- 
positions which ensure a good Communion, 
and thus reassured, goes in humble trust, goes 
often to the Holy Table, not because it is 
worthy, but because it is needy and poor. 

The controversies of the past are silenced, 
and when the Vicar of Christ has spoken so 
decisively, will not those who still hang back 
deserve the reproach: '' Why do you halt be- 
tween two ways? if the Lord be God follow 
Him." (III. Kings i8.) If you believe that 
the Vicar of Christ speaks to you with His 
authority and declares to you His good pleas- 
ure, trust him rather than the vagaries of. 
your own mind, to which no such assistance is 
promised, and follow him with docility and 
trust when he beckons you to the altar of God. 




XXXVI 

" REASONABLE SERVICE " 
(Rom. 12.) 

JOT only as we read the lives of the , 
Saints, but also In the guidance 
of our own lives, it behooves us to 
bear in mind that the Author of 
Nature and Grace is one and the same, that 
the dictates of Reason and Grace can never 
be really at variance, and that however much 
Grace may supersede Reason, it can never 
contradict it. 

Reason will certainly not take us all the 
way we have to go, nor suffice for every need, 
but it can never be left behind. We must 
take stock of our mental, physical, and spirit- 
ual outfit and not overtax them under pretext 
of mortification or zeal. '' Reasonable serv- 
ice,'' he tells us who *^ laboured more than all 
the Apostles," is what God asks of us. 

Views will differ considerably as to what is 
reasonable, and those with a clear tendency 
to self-sparing are hardly safe judges in this 
matter. Under the guidance of grace Saints 
do things that it would be rash for us to at- 

189 



190 Heavenwards 

tempt. But this is only saying that what is 
reasonable in them would not be so in our- 
selves. Their spiritual equipment is on a 
grander scale, their correspondence with grace 
of a higher order; the habits they have la- 
boriously formed render them capable of he- 
roic efforts, eminently reasonable in them ; but 
for us to attempt the same would be presump- 
tion and end in disaster. Till we have made 
their preparation, we must follow on their 
track at a distance ; learn to deny ourselves 
in the discharge of ordinary duty ; listen with' 
greater docility to the invitations of grace, 
and undertake honestly and steadily the con- 
test with self to which with quiet persistence 
it urges us. Not to admit this; or on the 
other hand to expect to follow Christ without 
pain and to purchase the Kingdom of Heaven 
without cost, would be manifestly unreason- 
able. The road thither must be uphill, there- 
fore wearisome, the struggle with self can 
never be anything but a disagreeable process 
— all this stands to reason. 

It is not those who question these truths or 
who minimise them in practise, who have 
need to bear in mind the counsel of the Apos- 
tle. But those whose ear is ever open to the 
whisperings of grace, who are training them- 
selves to make sacrifices readily, whose main 
desire is to know the Will of God and do It 



''Reasonable Service'' 191 

at any cost — such as these must be guided by 
the wise counsel of St. Paul if they would not 
be drawn aside into unsafe paths, urged, but 
not by the Spirit of God, into what is above 
their strength, with the probable result of a 
reaction sooner or later, of falling into dis- 
couragement, and of throwing up everything 
in despair. 

A German picture of the Guardian Angel 
shows his little pilgrim charge walking wari- 
ly, staff and beads in hand, along a narrow 
winding path, from which a precipice falls 
sheer down on either side. The heavenly 
Guardian follows close behind, the protecting 
hands ready to check the least swerve to right 
or left, for a tempting fringe of flowering 
roses hides the edge of the road, and deadly 
peril awaits the unguarded step. 

So is it with us all. There is danger in ex- 
cess no less than in defect. What involves 
strain will not last. We must govern our- 
selves wisely, follow grace, not precede it, 
be aware of our limitations, deal with our- 
selves at times as we should deal with others 
when health is plainly demanding more than 
ordinary consideration. We are composed of 
soul — and body. One danger of forgetting 
this and of bringing the body to bay, is that 
it is apt to act unmistakably on the defensive 
and end by remaining master of the field, 



192 Heavenwards 

St. Ignatius, speaking from his own experi- 
ence, tells us that when the Spirit of God is 
laying siege to a soul, He troubles and dis- 
concerts it, but when He is in possession. His 
action is to pacify and reassure and lead it on 
its way in peace. 

The practice of the evil one, on the con- 
trary, is to lull to sleep the slothful and self- 
indulgent soul and those he already holds fast 
bound in the chains of sin. But a soul that 
has escaped him, and every soul following 
Christ seriously, he is wont, at one time or 
another, to pursue with vain fears, troubled 
desires, promptings to impracticable, or use- 
less, or hurtful excesses, so to lead it astray, or 
tire it out on a path too difficult for it to 
keep. 

This insight into the workings of the Spirit 
of God and of the evil spirit, is of incalcula- 
ble value to us in our daily life. We come 
continually under one or the other of these in- 
fluences, we are perpetually called upon to 
make choices, and it is all important for us to 
be able to determine the character of the 
agency by which we are swayed. 

'' But," some will say, *' to know the source 
of the impulse that moves me, I must know 
the state of my own soul, and this is of all 
things in the world what I am most ignorant 
about." 



" Reasonable Service " 193 

Is It? Are you absolutely ignorant as to 
whether you are living in grievous and habit- 
ual and unscrupulous violation of the law of 
God or in the fixed resolution to refuse Him 
something He is asking with a clearness and 
persistency in which you cannot but recognise 
His voice? Or are you, on the other hand 
— ^not absolutely certain as to the condition 
of your state before God, for '* no man 
knows " with full certitude *' whether he is 
worthy of love or of hatred " (Ecclus. 9.) — 
but conscious through the honest inward tes- 
timony which you would feel justified in ac- 
cepting as sufficient in the case of another, 
that you desire to love and serve God, and 
are not aware of any resistance to His known 
Will in any important matter ? 

Surely in a normal state of soul, when the 
light of reason is not obscured by scrupulos- 
ity, we are able to give such an answer to 
these questions as an enlightened friend who 
knows us well would recognise as the truth? 
If a man knows clearly when with full knowl- 
edge, advertence, and consent he has yielded 
to grievous sin, may he not know — again sup- 
posing a normal state of soul when he is 
capable of forming a judgment — ^that he has 
not so sinned? 

It should riot, then, in that frank inter- 
course with God which makes Him welcome 



194 Heavenwards 

to the secrets of the heart and conscience, be 
impossible to conclude with moral certainty 
that we are His friends, weak, maybe, and 
very faulty, yet sincere; to believe that He 
treats us as His friends, and, therefore, that 
thoughts and impulses which leave us trou- 
bled and discouraged are not from Him and 
consequently are not to be heeded. 

*' Peace I leave with you. My peace I give 
unto you," (S. John 14.) are our dear Mas- 
ter's words. He does not overtax; His 
yoke is not too heavy. There are indeed 
seasons when He calls for the soul's whole 
energy and generosity to respond to His call. 
But always whether in these crises, the mo- 
mentous epochs of life, or along our daily 
path, with the help of ordinary grace that 
beckons to quiet fidelity and easy sacrifice, 
we are to pursue our way in peace and trust. 
Effort and struggle even when exceptionally 
strenuous and painful are not incompatible 
with the peace and prudence which mark the 
workings of the spirit of God, and with the 
teaching of the great Apostle who in his Mas- 
ter's interests called upon the first fervent fol- 
lowers of their Lord for '' reasonable serv- 
ice." 




XXXVII 

TRUE LOVE 

'I also have a heart like you." (Job 12.) 

JHE DISCIPLE. '' And therefore, O 
Lord, Thou canst sympathise with 
me in every pain of body and 
mind, in the trouble that is upon 
me now. I too am heavy and sad. I too can 
say: ' My soul is sorrowful.' Pain and anx- 
iety are stifling it, the weight of the cross 
bears me down, my burden seems more than 
I can bear. I see no quarter whence help can 
come, and though I try to trust and resign 
myself to Thy Will, I cannot throw off the 
trouble or dismiss the fears. And so I come 
to Thee for the sympathy and refreshment 
Thou has promised to the heavy-laden." 

Christ. *'And you do well, child. You 
have the fellow-feeling of My Heart to an 
extent you could neither ask nor dream of. 
But I would have you find strength and com- 
fort where I found it. I would have you 
remember that if I am your Friend on whom 
you may rightly count for sympathy, you are 

195 



196 Heavenwards 

also Mine of whom I may expect a little gen- 
erosity. Is it the part of generosity to make 
much of cost and sacrifice in the service of a 
friend, to protest vehemently whilst accepting 
labour and pain for His sake? Or is it our 
wont rather to hide our suffering from him, 
to smile lest he should see and be saddened 
by our tears, to seek to convince him by lov- 
ing words that the joy of sharing trial with 
him or doing him a service far outweighs any 
little cost to ourselves? See if My Heart 
has not shown this instinct of true friendship 
in Its dealings with you, and if your heart 
cannot brace itself to make Me a return in 
kind. 

You are my disciple and follower. When 
I ask you to show yourself such not in word 
and in tongue but in deed and in truth ; when, 
going before you carrying My Cross, I turn 
round to see if you are near to give Me com- 
fort by your companionship; when I prove 
My love by counting on yours for proofs of 
faithful and generous friendship — do not fail 
Me then. 

And, child, believe Me, this is the easiest 
way to suffer as well as the most meritorious. 
Try, and you will find it so. You will not 
have less of My sympathy and My help be- 
cause you forget yourself for Me, and think 
more of the joy there is in following Me 



True Love 197 

nearly than of the pain. It was the thought 
of you that solaced Me through the hardships 
of the three and thirty years and the dark 
hours of the Passion. Try what love of Me, 
a generous self-forgetting love, will do to 
lighten the cross that weighs upon you now. 
I am waiting for an effort, for a smile. Can 
you not give them to Me? Try." 
*^ In what place soever Thou shall be, Lord 
my King, there will Thy servant he!^ 

(II. Kings 5.) 

The Disciple. Dear Lord, I bring Thee my 
cross and lay it down at Thy feet as a love 
offering. With Thy help I will take it up 
again and bear it patiently, bravely, persever- 
ingly. But I want more than this. I want 
my offering to be a return in kind, a token of 
grateful love to Thee for that love of me 
which filled Thy Heart when Thou didst bear 
Thy heavy cross to Calvary. I want to be 
Thy companion on that road, to comfort 
Thee by sharing Thy pain of body and of 
mind. Thou art my Chief, I will follow 
wherever Thou dost lead. In what place so- 
ever Thou shalt be, O Lord my King, there 
will Thy servant be. Thou art my Bride- 
groom, my place is at Thy side. Thou art 
my Friend, to be treated as one dearly loved. 

I will not then make much of what I do or 
bear for Thy sake. I will not be forever ob- 



198 Heavenwards 

truding upon Thy notice my weariness or my 
repugnance. Rather will I seek to hide the 
shrinking of nature. I will take as a matter 
of course the cost of following such a Leader, 
and think more of the honour and the joy 
than of the pain. I will count Thy content- 
ment in my companionship abundant com- 
pensation for any labour and any suffering. 

Look round, dear Lord, as Thou goest be- 
fore me on the uphill road, look round and 
see me close behind, getting as near to Thee 
as I can, stumbling, falling again and again, 
but up at once and pressing closer than be- 
fore, never faltering in my purpose to give 
Thee a loyal, true, generous service, as free 
from self-seeking as Thy example and Thy 
grace will enable it to be. 

** Help me, O Lord, in this my resolution, 
and give me grace now this day perfectly to 
begin for all I have hitherto done is noth- 
ing." ^ 

* Imit. Ch. Bk. I, ch. 19. 



XXXVIII 



'* BE READY " 




''Be you then also ready, for at what hour you think not, the Son 
of Man will come." (S. Luke 12.) 

^HAT is it to be ready? 

First and essentially, it is to 
be in a state of grace, for should 
Death surprise us in mortal sin 
we are lost for ever. But shall we count this 
bare requisite enough? In His prayer to His 
Eternal Father on the eve of His Passion 
our Lord said: ** I have finished the work 
Thou gavest Me to do." And lying on His 
hard deathbed, it was only after the words: 
'' It is finished," that " bowing His Head He 
gave up the ghost." 

Were He to come to me now in death, 
would He find me able to say: '' I have fin- 
ished the work Thou gavest me to do, for 
my own soul and for those whom Thou hast 
entrusted to me and of whom I must give 
an account"? Could I say at least that I 
am labouring earnestly at this now? 

When we stand on the wharf, bound for 
a distant country, we cast a look abound us 

199 



200 Heavenwards 

to see if all things are ready. We look at the 
well-filled boxes and trunks, and wonder if 
we have forgotten anything that should be 
there. In case the requisites of life, as we 
consider them, are not to be had in the land 
to which we are going, we shall have taken 
care to provide them beforehand. What 
an amount of foresight and prudence does 
that luggage represent! Nothing has been 
left to chance, every need has been thought 
out and provided for in time. 

I am standing now on that stage to which 
my summons may come at any moment. Am 
I ready for the distant Land for which I am 
bound and which is to be my eternal dwelling- 
place? Once my vessel has pushed off, the 
time for preparation will be past — ^Am I 
ready? 

I look around — the forgiveness of my sins, 
has it been secured? my good works, are they 
there ready? my talents, have they been mul- 
tiplied and used to His glory who gave them ? 
'' Thou oughtest to have committed my mon- 
ey to the bankers and at my coming I should 
have received my own with usury." (S. 
Matth. 25.) I mark the words '* my money 
. . . my own." All belongs to God, all is 
given for a purpose, or rather lent; my gifts, 
my time, my money, my influence, my very 
life, are but a loan. I shall have to render 



" Be Ready '' 201 

a strict account ** when my life which is lent 
me shall be called for again." (Wisd. 15.) 

** Trade till I come," (S. Luke 19.) is His 
charge to all. Is my trading such as to earn 
the " Euge, serve bone ! Well done, good 
and faithful servant ! " when I come before 
Him to give an account of my stewardship? 
I notice that it does not suffice to have done 
no harm with the talents confided to us, we 
must have put them out to our Master's 
profit. I notice again that no excuse is ac- 
cepted. I shall not be able to plead circum- 
stances, or the insignificance of the trust com- 
mitted to me if I appear before Him with 
empty hands : '* Had I been differently situ- 
ated, had I been given the talents of So-and-so 
I might have done something with my life." 
We know the awful answer the unprofitable 
servant received. It is not the result but the 
loyal service to which God looks. Every- 
one is of use. Everyone; work of head and 
hand and heart is wanted. Each has a mis- 
sion of his own, a labour in his own sphere 
and surroundings that God waits to reward. 
We are each and all bound to look around us 
and see what work has been laid at our door, 
assigned us from eternity as the material for 
our everlasting crown. 

In one sense God needs none of us, in an- 
other He needs 'us everyone. He can spare 



202 Heavenwards 

no one. He wants my service and will con- 
descend to receive from my hand what He 
will accept from no other. What a stimulus 
to joyous activity is here! I must accustom 
myself to look not at the nature of the work 
that falls to my lot but at the Hand from 
which it comes and in which I place it ; at the 
Eye that notes it ; at the Heart that treasures 
it. This will deprive toil of its monotony and 
make it precious in my sight as it is in His. 

And what about my time, the most precious 
of the talents confided to me ? Does my Mas- 
ter look with approval at the mapping out 
of my day, at the portion set aside for prayer, 
for serious work, for the duties of my state; 
and at the due proportion — as I consider it — 
devoted to relaxation and amusement ? How 
shall I look back on my employment of days 
and weeks and years when the Angel of Death 
shall come to me with the announcement 
''that time shall be no more" (Apoc. lo.) 
for me, that the harvest I have sown is ripe 
and the hour has come to reap (Apoc. 14.) ? 

Other things, too, are to be made ready 
against that hour. What about the virtues 
that make up the apparel '' ghttering and 
white" (Apoc. 19.) in which my soul must 
be arrayed to take its place in those pure ranks 
into which there shall not enter anything de- 
filed (Apoc. 21.) ? Do I often and carefully 



" Be Beady '' 203 

wash my robes and make them white in the 
blood of the Lamb (Apoc. 7.) by sacramen- 
tal confession and frequent acts of contrition? 
Am I providing a store of charity against 
my day of need, the charity that covers a mul- 
titude of sins? Do I set a watch upon my 
lips and deeds and thoughts lest my neighbour 
suffer hurt through me? '' Come, blessed of 
My Father," the King will say at the Judge- 
ment, '* for I was hungry and you gave Me 
to eat; I was thirsty and you gave Me to 
drink ; I was a stranger and you took me in ; 
naked and you covered Me; sick and you 
visited Me ; I was in prison and you came to 
Me. . . Amen I say to you, as long as you 
did it to one of My least brethren you did it 
to Me." (S. Matth 25.) How many of 
these works of charity to His suffering mem- 
bers, that is to Himself, am I preparing for 
His acceptance and reward? 

Thus, then, as I stand waiting for my sum- 
mons, may I profitably pass in review the 
needs of a future day, and like a wise travel- 
ler — provide in time. 




XXXIX 

VISITS 

"All the day I have spread forth My hands to an unbelieving 
people." (Isaias 65.) 

HIS was bad enough, but to appeal 
in vain all day and every day to 
a believing people, is infinitely 
worse. Our Lord tells us that 
every good tree brings forth good fruit (S. 
Matth. 7.) and St. James says; ^* faith with- 
out works is dead." (S. James 2.) Would 
an impartial observer of our life and habits 
conclude we have a strong, practical faith in 
the Real Presence? We would die, please 
God, in defence of it, should the need come. 
But do we live by it and for it ? Do we in this 
one matter of Visits show the efficacious faith 
that might be expected of us? 

If a person of note comes to live in our 
neighbourhood we call to pay our respects; 
if he is a friend we are eager to bid him wel- 
come, are delighted to have him near at hand 
to consult and help and bring home with us 
and make much of; to sympathise with if he 

204 



Visits 205 

is in trouble, to make his interests one with 
our own. 

Is there anything of this in our relations 
with our Lord, who lives, maybe, not too far 
from us to expect the ordinary courtesy we 
show to neighbours? Do we go to Him to 
pay Him the homage due to His Majesty, 
to thank Him for all He does for us and is 
ready to do for us there, to show Him sym- 
pathy for the neglect and irreverence to which 
He exposes Himself for our sakes, and to 
make Him welcome to any little service His 
condescension may ask of us, to confide to 
Him our secrets and anxieties, delight Him 
with some unexpected piece of generosity, ask 
for ourselves and others the favours He is 
longing to bestow ? Or has He to say to His 
Father, as part of His perpetual sacrifice for 
us: "Friend and neighbour Thou hast put 
far from Me" (Ps. 87.)? 

To ascertain the worth of a thing there is 
nothing like comparison. Let us see how our 
dispositions compare with the Psalmist's in 
this point of visiting the house of the Lord. 

Possibly the unvarnished truth about our- 
selves might be something like this : 

" I believe, O Lord, that Thou art really 
present, Body and Blood, Soul and Divinity 
upon this altar, a few steps from my home; 
but because I do not see Thee there my faith 



206 Heavenwards 

in Thy Presence does not attract me to 
Thee : 

I believe Thou dost invite to Thee the la- 
bourers and the heavy-burdened; but because 
I do not hear Thy Voice and Thy invitation, 
I do not feel moved to go to Thee for Thy 
promised refreshment : 

I believe that my every word would be 
heard, every trouble compassionated, every 
perplexity enlightened, every anxiety shared, 
every trial sanctified ; but because I should not 
have the consolation of any sensible response 
to my confidences, I have no heart to take my 
troubles to Thy feet : 

I am deeply conscious that I need help and 
guidance; but unless I can have them in the 
way I want, I do not care to seek them : 

I am truly sensible of Thy goodness in re- 
maining always in our midst to receive our 
homage and be our resource in every need; 
but as I find no special pleasure in paying my 
court to Thee, and can trace no particular 
favour to such service of Thee, I cannot 
bring myself to do more than is of strict 
obligation : 

I never visit Thee, not because my days 
are too full, but because my heart is too empty 
of the love that would make this mark of af- 
fection a delight to me. It would cost me too 
much. I should not know what to say. I 



Visits 207 

should feel constrained in Thy presence, and 
therefore, O Lord — I never come." 

So much for our desire for the Courts of 
the Lord. Now let us hear the Psalmist's 
raptures at the thought of the Temple which 
with all its glory was so poor a type of the 
reality to come : 

'' As the hart panteth after the fountains 
of water, so panteth my soul after Thee, O 
Godl " for *' the place of the wonderful tab- 
ernacle, even the house of God." (Ps. 41.) 

" How lovely are Thy tabernacles, O Lord 
of Hosts, my soul longeth and fainteth for 
the courts of the Lord. . . . Thy altars, O 
Lord of Hosts, my King and my God ! For 
better is one day in Thy courts above thou- 
sands." (Ps. 83.) 

'* I rejoiced at what was said to me: We 
shall go into the house of the Lord." (Ps. 
121.) 

'* Come, let us praise the Lord with joy 
... let us come before His Presence with 
thanksgiving." (Ps. 94.) 

'' Come in before His Presence with ex- 
ceeding great joy." (Ps. 99.) 

'* Come and see the works of God . . . 
come and hear and I will tell you what great 
things He hath done for my soul." (Ps. 65.) 

** Bless the Lord, O my soul, and never 
forget all He hath done for thee." (Ps. 102.) 



208 Heavenwards 

*' We will praise Thee, O God, we will 
praise." (Ps. 74.) 

What would the Psalmist have done had 
our chances been his ! Would his full heart 
have found excuses to keep him from the 
Altar and the Tabernacle? Would he have 
felt his need of worship less because his God 
was so hidden and so humble? because, in- 
stead of the Temple's glorious courts, He had 
contented Himself with the meanest of lodg- 
ings? Would he have found his ardour 
abated because in place of figures he had the 
reality? Would he have been absent from 
the House of the Lord because no sensible 
consolation was vouchsafed him, or have 
expected to see in order to adore and 
praise? 

Sweet Singer of Israel, if figures and proph- 
ecy and hope so inspired thee that we turn 
to thy glowing fervour to warm our own cold 
hearts, what would it have been hadst thou 
possessed the Sacrament? God, Jesus in the 
Eucharist, to content thy longing and prompt 
thy gratitude and thy love! 

What kings and prophets have desired to 
see, I see and may see daily if I will. Here 
I may come to adore and praise my God, to 
propitiate my Judge, to thank my constant 
Benefactor, to converse with my best Friend, 
to get counsel in doubt, strength and comfort 



Visits 209 

in trouble, more grace, more light, more gen- 
erosity — help in every need. 

It will not be so long: '' You have not Me 
always," our Lord tells us. When life is 
done, and from the threshold of eternity we 
look back on the days of the Altar and the 
Tabernacle, what sorrow it will be to us that 
while time and opportunity were ours, we let 
— not necessary duties, but the weakness of 
faith and love keep us from Him who all 
life through waited patiently for us there and 
with tender pleading tried to draw us to Him- 
self! 

My God, I will come to Thee. This must 
not go on. Death must not find me like this. 
I could not bear at Judgement to hear Thee 
say sadly : '' So long have I been with you and 
have you not known Me!" (S. John 14.) 
I will come to Thee ; just because of my mis- 
erable dispositions, I will come. Because I 
am cold I will come to the fire and humbly 
beg a little warmth. Because I am self-seek- 
ing, I will come and learn the forgetfulness 
of self which none can teach like Thee. Be- 
cause I am poor and needy in every vv^ay, I 
will draw near to Thee who canst enrich me. 
Because it will please Thee to see me at Thy 
feet, I will come. What if for awhile I find 
no change in myself! What if the pleasure 



210 Heavenwards 

of the visit is all on Thy side ! I can be a lit- 
tle generous — at last. To serve Thee at my 
own cost will enhance, perhaps, not lessen 
the value of my gift in Thy eyes? Teach me 
how to speak to Thee, to bring my joys and 
sorrows, my plans and difficulties and aspira- 
tions after better things to Thee, and come 
at length to run to Thee in every need as to 
my Friend. 




XL 

WILFULNESS 

'F only we could be penetrated Here 
on earth with the reverence which 
is the very atmosphere of Heav- 
en ! Before '' the Most High 
God," the Seraphim cover their faces with 
their wings (Isaias 6.) and sing continually: 
'' Holy, Holy, Holy." '' Thousands of thou- 
sands minister to Him, and ten thousand 
times a hundred thousand stand before Him." 
(Dan. 7.) And Saints fall down on their 
faces and adore Him and cast their crowns 
before the Throne." (Apoc. 4.) 

Meantime men on earth are discovering 
discrepancies in His revelation, deriding the 
possibility of miracles, criticising the govern- 
ment of the world, denying any government 
of it that supposes a Governor, and doing 
their best to explain away all evidence of the 
supernatural. 

Many who do not go to this length habitu- 
ally ignore the Commandments of God. 
They call Him to account when His plans 

211 



212 Heccoenwards 

conflict with their own. They look upon His 
gifts — fortune, health, honour, influence, the 
possession of those dear to them — as their 
right, and when He reclaims any of these, 
either complain bitterly as of an injustice, or 
cut themselves off from intercourse with Him 
as they would with an offending neighbour. 
They will not consider His rights or His de- 
signs of mercy in their afflictions. They re- 
ject His offers of strength and consolation, 
intrench themselves in a sullen reserve, and 
drift into a state of estrangement from Him 
which lasts, maybe, till death. There may 
have been times when something like this was 
true of ourselves. 

And God is patient with us in our perver- 
sity, whilst the Angels see with amazement 
our forgetfulness of what is due to His Maj- 
esty. How far man can forget himself in 
treating with God, and abuse the Divine con- 
descension by insolence and churlishness, we 
may learn from what the prophet Isaias tells 
us of Achaz, king of Juda, when his power- 
ful neighbour, the king of Syria, was coming 
against him. 

" And the Lord said to Isaias : Go forth 
to meet Achaz and say to him : Fear not and 
let not thy heart be afraid. . . . Thus saith 
the Lord God: This shall not be. . . . And 
the Lord spoke again to Achaz saying: Ask 



Wilfulness 213 

thee a sign of the Lord thy God unto the 
depth of hell or unto the height above. 

And Achaz said : I will not ask, and I will 
not tempt the Lord." (Isaias 7.) 

Such perversity astounds us. Yet some- 
thing very like this we do ourselves when we 
meet God's advances with surly refusals; as 
if it were a manly act to show ourselves thank- 
less and boorish towards the Lord of Heaven 
and earth ! 

Do we suppose our refractoriness will de- 
feat His designs? Surely not. He needs 
none of us. It is only by an act of supreme 
condescension that He stoops to ask our serv- 
ice. If we refuse it, the loss is wholly ours. 
Others will profit by our foolishness and show 
themselves more worthy of His favour. So 
it has been from the beginning, '' I will not 
serve" (Jerem. 2.), said Lucifer, and like 
lightning he fell from Heaven. God's glory 
was unimpaired. Preeminence among the 
angelic host was but transferred; Michael be- 
came its leader and " prince of all the souls 
to be received." Of one of the Twelve it was 
said: *' his bishoprick let another take," (Acts 
I.) and the office even of an Apostle passed 
from Judas to Matthias. 

*' Be not deceived, God is not mocked," 
says St. Paul, '' for what things a man shall 
sow, those also shall he reap." (Gal. 6.) The 



214 Heavenwards 

Divine patience with us is inexplicable. God 
offers His gifts, nay, presses them upon our 
acceptance. But He will not force our free- 
will. One of the most solemn lessons taught 
on Calvary was this. 

Save Thyself and us! The central cross 
drew to itself the imploring eyes of the thieves 
on either side. He who hung between them 
felt with the sympathy of experience the an- 
guish of His fellow sufferers and yearned 
most truly to save them both. Grace was not 
wanting; the Blood to purchase salvation for 
both was being profusely shed. Truly there 
was plentiful redemption at hand — and for 
both. How came it, then, that one alone 
profited by it when the chances seemed so 
equal? Both were malefactors, both, ap- 
parently, began by blaspheming, both had be- 
fore their eyes the same Divine example of 
meekness and patience. The miraculous dark- 
ness, the earthquake, the prodigies on earth 
and in the heavens that made the multitude 
go home striking their breasts, and the Cen- 
turian exclaim : '' Indeed this man was the Son 
of God! " — all these actual graces were for 
both. 

The difference between them lay in the wil- 
lingness of the one and the wilfulness of the 
other when there was a question of accepting^ 



Wilfulness 215 

not the salvation for which they cried, but 
that offered them by God. One let grace have 
its way with him. He saw that Form beside 
him sink lower and lower on the nails. He 
marked the silence of those uncomplaining 
lips. He heard the prayer: '' Father, forgive 
them," the only answer torture and the revil- 
ing crowd could wring from that meek Heart. 
And as he looked and listened, there came 
upon him a strong impulse to put from him 
the wild desire for release and life for which 
his companion was clamouring, and crave in- 
stead, of Him who hung there, a remem- 
brance of mercy. He surrendered himself 
to the impulse. He laid hold of the proffered 
salvation, and turning to Jesus cried: '' Lord, 
remember me when Thou shalt come into Thy 
kingdom." The act by which he yielded 
himself up to the Will of God, and flung 
himself on the mercy of his Redeemer, and 
humbly accepted his punishment in satisfac- 
tion for his sins — it was this that saved him. 
The other thief saw the same Divine ex- 
ample, heard the same Divine words. But 
the way of grace into his soul was barred by 
the frantic desire of release from his tor- 
ments, which consumed him. No other sal- 
vation would he accept. He might have fol- 
lowed his companion's lead, and his prayer 
for a remembrance would have met with the 



216 Heavenwards 

same merciful response. But he hardened 
his heart; he let the hour of mercy pass and 
the whispers of grace die down in his soul, 
and despair came to fill up his cup of misery. 

God will not save us in spite of ourselves ; 
we must acknowledge His overlordship, sub- 
mit ourselves to Him, and take His Will in 
place of our own if we are to find rest to our 
souls. We cannot be petulant with Him, 
dictate conditions to Him, or let His marvel- 
lous condescension to us make us forget who 
we are. No intimacy, no privilege can au- 
thorise anyone to take liberties with Him. 
St. Thomas nearly lost his faith and his 
apostleship, and all the fruit of his coura- 
geous love of his Master, by the wilfulness 
which made him presume to prescribe the 
conditions for his belief. 

The higher the Saints mount in the knowl- 
edge and love of God, the more absolute is 
the reverence and submission by which they 
liken themselves to the blessed inhabitants of 
Heaven and earn their place among them. 
The loftiest of all there, the Mother of God 
and Queen of Angels and Saints, is His 
handmaid always. Nay, Christ Himself, as 
Man our ''Advocate with the Father" (I. 
John 2.) is heard still — '* for His reverence." 
(Heb. 5.) 

The temper of the modern mind is self- 



Wilfulness 217 

assertion and independence. Reverence and 
submission are at a discount in the world of 
to-day. But in Heaven they retain their value 
always : if we want to reach our place there, 
we must be shaping for it now. 



XLI 



THIRST 



Messiah foretold by the Prophets 
His self-effacement. '' He 



:^^s=^^J shall not cry, neither shall His 
voice be heard in the streets." (Isaias 42.) 
He was to be at once *' glorious, and secret, 
and hidden," (Ecclus. 11.) "poor and in la- 
bours from His youth," (Ps. 87.) "the teach- 
er of little ones," (Isaias 33.) " verily a hid- 
den God." (Isaias 45.) 

The fulness of time came, and " the 
prophets were found faithful." (Ecclus. 
36.) " When all things were in quiet silence 
and night was in the midst of her course," 
(Wisd. 18.), the Word was made flesh and 
dwelt amongst us. For thirty years He lived 
unknown in an obscure village ; and when the 
time came for Him to manifest Himself to 
men, when His days were ablaze with the 
splendour of the miracles needed to accredit 
His mission, when " the whole world had 
gone after Him " (S. John 12.), even then 

218 



Thirst 219 

the atmosphere of humility that shrouded all 
this, kept Him the hidden God. 

His ways were quiet, His teaching was 
quiet. So that when we hear that on a cer- 
tain day, '' the last and great day of the Feast 
(of Tabernacles) Jesus stood and cried, say- 
ing: If any man thirst, let him come to Me 
and drink" (S. John 7.), we are at once 
startled to attention by the departure from 
His ordinary self-repression. It must, we 
feel, have some special significance and call 
for reverent study. 

With a multitude about Him, He stood 
and cried: " If any man thirst let him come 
to Me and drink." What was the purport 
of the cry that betrayed the fulness of His 
Heart that day? It was an appeal to each 
and every one of those whose human nature 
He shares, for this thirst is upon us all — the 
child at school, the philosopher, the merchant, 
the poet, the scoundrel, the saint, are stirred 
every one of them by the God-given craving 
for happiness which is the end of our crea- 
tion. Every joy and sorrow of human life 
has its source in it; every pursuit points to 
it; Art in all her highest aspirations is the 
expression of it; Religion directs it steadily 
to the living fountains where alone it can be 
satisfied. 

This thirst for happiness is at once our need 



220 Heavenwards 

and our glory, so much a necessity of our na- 
ture that no abuse can stifle it, so true a wit- 
ness to the nobility of that nature and to the 
grandeur of our destiny, that men are forced 
to own nothing here can quench. God Who 
made us for Himself has put into our hearts 
a thirst for Him that it may lead us to the 
happiness to which it points. We may not 
recognise it as tending to Him, we may think 
to assuage it by one or other of the baits that 
life holds out to us — wealth, pleasure, glory, 
love — but sooner or later we come to learn 
by experience that, instead of slaking, these 
things do but increase our thirst. Solomon 
who had enjoyed them all tells us: "I have 
given my heart to know prudence, and learn- 
ing, and errors, and folly. I said: I will go 
and abound in delights and enjoy good 
things. ... I built me houses and planted 
vineyards, ... I made gardens and or- 
chards, I got me men-servants and maid- 
servants and had a great family. ... I 
heaped together for myself silver and gold 
and the wealth of kings . . . and whatsoever 
my eyes desired I refused them not: and I 
withheld not my heart from enjoying every 
pleasure. And when I turned myself to all 
the works my hands had wrought, and to the 
labours wherein I had laboured in vain, I saw 
In all things vanity and vexation of mind . . . 



Thirst 221 

and therefore was I weary of my life, and 1 
hated all my application wherewith I had ear- 
nestly laboured." (Ecclesiastes 2.) St. Au- 
gustine went on the same quest and came to 
the same conclusion : *' Thou hast made us for 
Thyself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless 
until they rest in Thee." 

Yet the bulk of men profit nothing by a 
universal experience. It may be the lot of 
all, but he himself — each one believes or 
hopes — will prove an exception, and so, hav- 
ing fixed their goal they pursue it with a pa- 
tience and perseverance that makes the heart 
bleed to think of the disillusioning and disap- 
pointment to which they are doomed. 

"Water, water everywhere 
And not a drop to drink." 

*' Salt water cannot yield sweet" (S. 
James 3.), and the things of this life, how- 
ever fair their promise, defeat our expecta- 
tion when we make them an end. It is not 
their fault but ours, who would force them 
to serve a purpose for which they were never 
made. 

The child St. Augustine watched by the 
seashore tried in vain to fill with water the 
hole his little hands had scooped. Again and 
again he fetched water from the sea, but as 
fast as he poured it in, the thirsty sand drank 



222 Heavenwards 

it up and waited for more. And we shall 
never satisfy with anything of this world the 
hearts made to enjoy the Infinite God. 

But we try, most of us, try all our lives. 
Meantime One is standing by, watching and 
pitying: *' My people have done two evils. 
They have forsaken Me, the fountain of liv- 
ing water, and have digged to themselves cis- 
terns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water." 
(Jerem. 2.) 

The same pity stirred the Heart of Christ 
the day He stood and cried: '' If any man 
thirst, let him come to Me and drink." 
There is something very solemn and moving 
in this cry of the Incarnate Son of God. It 
Is the complaint of old, renewed by human 
lips, renewed a second time, for He had said 
before this : '' You will not come to Me that 
you may have life." (S. John 5.) He is 
one of us ; He knows how much we need Him ; 
He feels for us with a human sympathy, and 
In our perversity it is the harm we do our- 
selves rather than the injury to Himself that 
He seems to deplore. 

// any man thirst. "If thou didst know 
the gift of God thou wouldst perhaps have 
asked of Him and He would have given thee 
living water." (S. John 4.) So courteously 
He puts His invitation, and solicits our free 
will. He knows how we all thirst, but He 



Thirst 223 

must bide our time. " He shall not be trouble- 
some," His prophet had said of Him (Isaias 
42.) and He seems to fear lest in His desire 
to help us He might be deemed over impor- 
tunate and insistent. 

Not once alone, nor to a Jewish multitude 
only, did the Heart of Christ send forth that 
cry to thirsting souls: *' All the day I have 
spread forth My hands to an unbelieving 
people who walk in a way that is not good." 
(Isaias 6$.) His call is to every soul that 
comes into this world, and if ever there was 
need to pause in the rush of life to give ear 
to Him, it is in these days of ours. " Come 
to Me," He says, " and drink. On every 
side you will find the allurements of sense mul- 
tiplying continually in number and fascina- 
tion. But they will never satisfy you — Come 
to Me!" 

All that goes to make up worldliness — the 
contentment with things present, the ignoring 
of God and the supernatural, impatience with 
the restraints of faith and religion, pride of 
intellect, the glorification of man in the tri- 
umphant subjection of Nature's hidden and 
marvellous forces, the worship of material 
wellbeing, the wringing out of creatures what- 
ever may minister to ease and pleasure — all 
this will increase as time goes on and the end 
nears. And the result will be to deaden in 



224 Heavenwards 

men the craving for the things that constitute 
true life. 

We see, then, why the Lover of our souls 
Is so urgent, why He stands and cries to each 
one of us during our short day of life here: 
*' Come to Me! " As Man He knows ex- 
perimentally, in a way He did not know be- 
fore the Incarnation, the thirst of the human 
soul for its God, '' I thirst," He cried In that 
dereliction of the Cross which was the most 
awful of His torments. He knows that its 
sense of its need of God, however dulled for 
awhile by the distractions of this life, becomes 
absolute and imperative beyond anything we 
can conceive, once the frontier Is crossed and 
we enter upon the life beyond the grave. 
Only then can the soul enjoy perfect happi- 
ness when in possession of the Object for 
which It was created, which fully occupies and 
wholly satisfies all Its powers — that Is in the 
possession of God. Out of Him there is no 
happiness hereafter. And we must secure 
Him here, in time. 

We are not to be Stoics or Puritans, with- 
out Interest in the events of life, '' without 
affection, without fidelity, without mercy " 
(Rom. I.) a disposition intolerable to the 
ardent heart of St. Paul. A noble patriotism, 
an enthusiastic appreciation of the beautiful 
in nature and in art, a keen enjoyment of the 



Thirst 225 

innocent pleasures of life, a tender love of 
home and its ties, an intelligent response to 
the claims upon our interest in public or pri- 
vate life, a due insistance upon our rights in 
our relations with others — all this is con- 
sistent with St. John's teaching: "Love not 
the world nor the things which are in the 
world" (I. S. John 2.), and St. Paul's: 
*' This, therefore I say, brethren, the time is 
short : it remaineth that they that weep be as 
though they wept not; and they that rejoice 
as though they rejoiced not; and they that buy 
as though they possessed not; and they that 
use this world as though they used it not ; for 
the fashion of this world passeth away." 
(I. Cor. 7.) Whilst it lasts for us we have 
to work out our salvation in it, using all things 
as means not ends, as belonging to the ste- 
wardship for which we shall have to give an 
account, " good for the present necessity," as 
St. Paul says again (I. Cor. 7.), but not to 
be allowed to stifle in us the thirst for the good 
things to come. *' Let temporal things serve 
thy need," A'Kempis tells us, " but the eternal 
be the object of thy desire." 

We have an example of a Christian of this 
stamp in that model layman. Blessed Thomas 
More. As husband, father, master, friend, 
subject, scholar, judge, he seems to us almost 
faultless. The present things of life might 



226 Heavenwards 

have entangled him, but his mind was too 
lofty to be enslaved by anything of this world. 
He knew how uncertain was his tenure of 
them and of life itself, and held them with a 
loose hand. And when the hour of trial came 
and he had to choose between these things 
and fidelity to his God, he let them go with 
a simplicity and a gladness that showed they 
had never been suffered to quench his thirst 
for '* the strong, living God " (Ps. 41), and 
for the treasures that once secured, no man 
can take away. 

'* Blessed are they that hunger and thirst 
after justice for they shall have their fill." 
(S. Matth. 5.) 

*' My soul hath thirsted after the strong, 
living God." (Ps. 41.) 

*' For Thee my soul hath thirsted, for Thee 
my flesh, O how many ways ! " (Ps. 12.) 

** Give me the water of saving wisdom to 
drink." (Ecclus. 15.) 

" Give me this water that I may not thirst." 
(S. John 4.) 




XLII 

" PLENTIFUL REDEMPTION " 

(Ps. 129) 

"Then they shall see the Son of Man coming in a cloud with great 
power and majesty. . . . But when these things begin to come to 
pass look up, and lift up your heads because your redemption is at 
hand." (S. Luke 21.) 

^ HAT a redemption that will be ! 
Sin will have disappeared long 
ago with every shadow of weak- 
ness and defect. Purgatory's 
debt was paid at last, and to the eager waiting 
soul its Angel sped with the good tidings: 
" Arise, make haste, my beautiful one and 
come." (Cant. 2.) ''Put off the garment 
of thy mourning and affliction, and put on the 
beauty and honour of that everlasting glory 
which thou hast from God." (Baruch. 5.) 
Perfect in its purity, all its powers quickened 
and strengthened by an intensity of life and 
energy compared with which the old life was 
but feebleness and torpor, it went forth from 
the prison-house, transformed, yet itself still, 
the character by which it was known on earth 
developed not destroyed, purged from every 
element of imperfection, but underlying and 

227 



228 Heavenwards 

permeating all the creations of grace, and 
giving it the distinctive holiness and attract- 
iveness by which it is known among the 
Blessed. 

But its companion the body — can this, too, 
expect redemption? Can we conceive of dis- 
honour and ruin more irretrievable than that 
of the grave ? Yet the hour will come when 
it will hear the voice of the Son of God, and 
come forth as a member of the body of Christ 
to take its share in His triumph. It has had 
its Purgatory, a humiliation so fundamental 
and so deep that only the Creator's hand 
could reach and rescue it. But " to the work 
of His hands He will reach out His right 
hand," (Job 14.) and 'St will live in His 
sight." (Osee 6.) '' It is sown in dishonour, 
it shall rise in glory. It is sown in weakness, 
it shall rise in power." (I. Cor. 15.) "I will 
redeem them from death." (Osee 13.) 

'* Son of man, thinkest thou these bones 
shall live? " (Ezechiel 37.) There are men 
in our days who would have answered with- 
out hesitation : '* Most certainly not, it would 
be contrary to all the laws of Nature and the 
principles of science." What said the wise 
prophet? *' O Lord God, Thou knowest " 
(ibid.) — that is: '' All things depend on Thy 
Will, Nature has no other law, and must be 
prepared for any surprise If Thou but give 



" Plentiful Redemption " 229 

the word." What a surprise awaits her on 
the Last Day: 

Mors stupebit et natura 
Cum resurget creatura: 

Nature shall see with dumb surprise 
The creature long consumed arise. 

For this restoration all the Saints wait and 
cry: " How long, O Lord, how long! " They 
ardently desire that redemption of the body, 
that reunion with the partner of their strug- 
gles and victories which so often was sacri- 
ficed to the interests of the soul. The Angel's 
trumpet at the Last Day will sound its hour 
of redemption, *' for I know that my Re- 
deemer liveth, and in the Last Day I shall 
rise out of the earth, and I shall be clothed 
again with my skin, and in my flesh I shall 
see my God, whom I myself shall see and my 
eyes shall behold and not another: this my 
hope is laid up in my bosom." (Job 19.) 

** With Thee there is plentiful redemp- 
tion," we say in hope each time the De Pro- 
fundis recalls the humiliation of the grave. 
But Hope cannot forecast that complete re- 
habilitation which transcends all thought and 
desire, when *' the enemy Death that is to be 
destroyed last" (L Cor. 15.) shall be van- 
quished for ever, and all the elect shall rise 



230 Heavenwards 

in glory to meet Christ. The properties of a 
glorified body — immortality, impassibility, 
agility, clarity — as we see them in the Hu- 
manity of our Lord after the Resurrection, 
will be the sources of delight unimaginable 
now. No more need of wariness; Paradise, 
and no forbidden fruit; all the treasures of 
God thrown open to be enjoyed to the full, 
the liberty of the children of God complete ! 

Thus will the promise at Capharnaum be 
fulfilled: '' He that eateth My flesh and drink- 
eth My blood hath everlasting life and I will 
raise him up in the last Day." (S. John 6.) 
In Holy Communion we receive the pledge 
of the eternal glory promised to the body; 
each time we communicate we renew that 
pledge and merit a new degree of likeness to 
our glorious Head. '* It hath not yet appeared 
what we shall be, but we know that when He 
shall appear we shall be like to Him because 
we shall see Him as He is.'' (I. S. John 3.) 

** O happy fault, that deserved to have 
such a Redeemer! " is the marvellous cry of 
admiration and gratitude with which the 
Church, as a rule so calm in her utterances, 
welcomes her Lord back each year from the 
grave, '* the first-fruits of them that sleep." 
(I. Cor. 15.) Well may she lay His mem- 
bers to their rest with all reverence, with 
chant, with incense, with the prayer of hope. 




THE GOOD SHEPHERD 



''Plentiful Redemption'' 231 

and with the promise : ** I am the Resurrec- 
tion and the life, he that believeth in Me al- 
though he be dead shall live." (S. John 1 1.) 
In these days when faith in the resurrec- 
tion of the body like so many other funda- 
mental truths, is losing its hold upon the 
minds of men, we must guard it jealously as 
the foundation that supports our faith and 
hope and the whole fabric of religion. In 
hours of sickness or weariness or combat 
when the flesh must be subdued by the spirit, 
let us repeat to ourselves: "I believe in the 
resurrection of the body." Let us promise 
it reward later for present restraint, and see 
it fail and decay, not as those who have no 
hope, but with the certainty that it will be 
restored to us endowed with new and wonder- 
ful powers in the resurrection. 

" Whoso laments, that we must dofF this garb 
Of frail mortality, thenceforth to live 
Immortally above; he hath not seen 
The sweet refreshing of that heavenly shower. 

Our shape, regarmented with glorious weeds, 

Of saintly flesh, must, being thus entire. 

Show yet more gracious. Therefore shall increase 

Whatever, of light, gratuitous imparts 

The Supreme Good; light ministering aid, 

The better to disclose His glory, 

. . . thus this circling sphere 

Of splendour shall to view less radiant seem. 



232 Heavenwards 

Than shall our fleshly robe, which yonder earth 
Now covers. Nor will such excess of light 
Overpower us, in corporeal organs made 
Firm, and susceptible of all delight." 

So ready and so cordial an "Amen" 
Followed from either choir, as plainly spoke 
Desire of their dead bodies; yet perchance 
Not for themselves, but for their kindred dear, 
Mothers and sires, and those whom best they loved 
Ere they were made imperishable flame. 

Paradise. Canto XIV. Dante. 

In view of Its future glory, we shall treat 
the body with reverence now, and discounte- 
nance in ourselves and in others the love of 
display which disgraces too many Christian 
women. Is it '' the body of our lowness " 
(Philip. 3.) that we see attracting to itself 
general attention in our streets, and assembly 
rooms, and even in our churches; *' daughters 
decked out after the similitude of a temple " 
(Ps. 143.) to invite admiration and worship! 
We may do our utmost to give them credit 
for the best intentions like Judith, to whom 
Scripture bears witness that '' all this dressing 
up did not proceed from sensuality but from 
virtue." (Judith 10.) Yet we cannot forget 
that virtue lies in the mean, that St. Paul 
would have them adorn themselves with mod- 
esty and sobriety ... as it becometh women 
professing godliness," (I. Tim. 2.) that Scrip- 
ture bids us *' turn away our face from a 



" Plentiful Redemption '' 233 

woman dressed up," (Ecclus. 9.) and warns 
us that '' the attire of the body shows what 
a man Is." (Ecclus. 19.) 

These bodies of ours are to be one day the 
admiration of the Angels and Saints; the 
gaze of the Immaculate is to rest lovingly 
upon them; they are to be objects of com- 
placency to God Himself. In our treatment 
of them now, in the government of their 
craving for whatever ministers to their pleas- 
ure, we must hold them wisely in check and 
permit nothing that would be unworthy of or 
endanger their glory to come. 

We have to bear In mind, too, that if it is 
to share the reward of the soul in eternity, the 
body must divide labour with it now. Eter- 
nal rest, which the Church desires for body 
and soul alike, supposes the present work of 
both. Killing time is not work; a round of 
endless amusement Is not work ; the selfishness 
that neglects its duties to others, is not work. 
The body must be taught that if it is the 
companion of the soul, It Is still more its serv- 
ant, and throughout the term of its service 
must be prepared to refrain from much and 
endure much in the interests of its lord. St. 
Bernard has a beautiful illustration of this. 
A certain prince being in exile took up his 
abode with a poor widow who in her poverty 
showed him all honour and reverence and 



234 Heavenwards 

went without many things that he might not 
want. Restored at length to his place in the 
kingdom of his father, he bethought him of 
her to whom he was so much beholden in the 
past, and begged that she might have remem- 
brance and reward. '' I beseech thee," so he 
prayed, '' that this thy handmaid, who for 
many years most patiently endured privation 
for my sake, may be sent for now to share 
my honours and my treasures." 

Does my body realise its position as hand- 
maid of my soul ? Does it readily deny itself 
in the service of its prince, working hard now 
to deserve rest and glory hereafter? Of 
course the service will cost, but what of that ? 
What if *' the widow's tears run down the 
cheek " (Ecclus. 35.) — for a while? the day 
will come when they shall be dried and for- 
gotten. Meantime we will say to her cheerily : 
" Work your work before the time and He 
will give you your reward in His time." (Ec- 
clus. 51.) 




XLIII 

" THE DAY OF OUR LORD JESUS CHRIST " 
(II. Cor. i) 

|HE minds of men are very vari- 
ously affected by the Influences un- 
der which they come. What will 
stir one to its depths and trans- 
form life for it, will have but a superficial ef- 
fect upon another, and leave a third altogether 
unimpressed. But there is an influence none 
can wholly resist — the Saint, the sceptic, the 
reckless, the callous, none can face it without 
flinching. It is the thought of ^' the Great 
Day of the Almighty God," (Apoc. i6.) 
when '* every man's work sjiall be manifest, 
for the day of the Lord shall declare it;" 
(I. Cor. 3.) ** when God shall judge the se- 
crets of men by Jesus Christ." (Rom. 2.) 

Who can think of this Day without terror? 
St. Jerome could not. " Every night," he 
said, '' when I lie down to rest, I think I hear 
the Angel's summons : * Arise, ye dead, and 
come to Judgement! ' " Whatever points to 
that Day affrights us. Events in which we 
think we discern '* the beginnings of sorrows 

235 



236 Heavenwards 

— earthquakes in divers places, the rising of 
nation against nation, wars, and rumours of 
wars," disquiet us doubly because we see in 
them forerunners of the end. 

Our Lord Himself who is so loth to fright- 
en, makes known to us the awful portents 
that are to herald the Last Day — *' signs in 
the sun and in the moon and in the stars, the 
roaring of the sea and of the waves, men 
withering away for fear and expectation of 
what shall come upon the whole world." (S. 
Luke 21.) The forces of nature that man 
has yoked to his service shall be in wild dis- 
array; all he has counted as his own and built 
on for his enjoyment in an interminable fu- 
ture, shall suddenly fail him and disappear. 
" The heavens shall pass away with great 
violence, and the elements shall be miclted 
with heat, and the earth and the works that 
are in it shall be burnt up." (IL Peter 3.) 
With what terrific energy must that fire, the 
final instrument of God's justice be endowed, 
when the very elements will be melted by its 
consuming heat ! Can we conceive of destruc- 
tion more complete, or of any feelings with 
regard to that Day but those of unmitigated 
terror ! 

Yet there is another aspect of it which we 
must not forget. Speaking to His Apostles 
our Lord gives this injunction: *' When these 



" The Day of Our Lord " 237 

things begin to come to pass, look up and lift 
up your heads because your redemption is at 
hand." (S. Luke 21.) Self-forgetting al- 
ways. His thoughts are still for us in that 
coming '' day of the Lord," and as before His 
Ascension He bade His disciples be comfort- 
ed because it was expedient for them that He 
should go, so when telling them of the Day 
when the Son of Man shall be seen coming 
in a cloud with great power and majesty, He 
says to them: '* Look up and lift up your 
heads because your redemption is at hand." 

Look up! The universal ruin which will 
fill with despair those whose all it has en- 
gulfed, will leave undismayed the hearts of 
the Saints who have kept themselves disen- 
gaged from the things of this world as having 
here no abiding city. The smoke of that 
holocaust which is the end of all earth's fair 
and costly things, will be to them but the in- 
cense announcing His approach on whom all 
their love and hopes are set, who is to them 
all in all. 

Amid those scenes and sounds of terror, 
there will be His word to them from the 
glowing heavens, His favorite word to His 
own: *' Fear not, it is L Behold My hands 
and My feet and see that it is I Myself." 
'' Fear not you," the Angel said to the wom- 
en at the Sepulchre, " for I know that you 



238 Heavenwards 

seek Jesus who was crucified." And all these 
with upturned faces have sought Him 
through the dimness and perplexities of the 
past, have followed where Faith led and re- 
fused to be lured aside by the false lights 
of so-called advanced thought, and theories 
that would have emancipated them from the 
subjection of Faith. There were difficulties 
for them as for others ; they could not under- 
stand but they believed and they hoped; in 
the darkness they clung to the hand of the 
Church and she has brought them safe — to 
this! They knew whom they had believed 
and were certain He was able to keep that 
which they had committed to Him against 
this Day. They sought Jesus who was cru- 
cified, they carried their cross after Him, and 
that cross is now their salvation. Resplen- 
dent with glory it appears in the heavens and 
lo ! on the forehead of all these to the right, 
appears that saving sign. 

They are His, He has come for them, they 
are to share His triumph — why should they 
not rejoice ! Amidst the awful confusion of 
that Day when '' the stars shall be falling 
down, and the powers that are in heaven shall 
be moved. He shall send His Angels and shall 
gather together His elect from the four 
winds, from the uttermost part of the earth 
to the uttermost part of heaven." (S. Mark 



" The Day of Our Lord " 239 

13.) What tenderness there is in these, His 
own words of reassurance! Others are to 
be summoned to Judgement, *' the elect and 
faithful" (Apoc. 17.) are to be gathered to- 
gether by Angels and brought to Him. Not 
one shall be forgotten ; however scattered, 
they shall be brought together ; however low- 
ly, they are His and He in His glory will re- 
member and send for them. Lord, remember 
me when Thou shalt come into Thy King- 
dom! 

But there is a stronger, higher cause for 
rejoicing yet. He who taught us to say: 
*' Thy Kingdom come ! " would have us share 
His desire for the coming of that Day when 
He shall ^* deliver up the Kingdom to the 
Father . . . that God may be all in all." 
(I. Cor. 15.) Must we not be glad for His 
sake, glad for His triumph, glad to see all 
things under His feet? (I. Cor. 15.) *' Fa- 
ther," He prayed as He left this world, '' I 
will that where I am they also whom Thou 
hast given Me may be with Me that they may 
see My glory." (S. John 17.) Holy Job 
amid the dimness of heathendom longed for 
that sight. David cried out: '' I shall be satis- 
fied when Thy glory shall appear." (Ps. 16.) 
Have we less reason to rejoice than these? 

*' The Son of Man shall come in His maj- 
esty and all the Angels with Him, and shall 



240 Heavenwards 

sit upon the seat of His majesty. And all 
nations shall be gathered together before 
Him." (S. Matth. 25.) Shall we not '^ be 
glad and rejoice when the marriage of the 
Lamb is come, (Apoc. 19.) and the Church 
which has prepared herself is there, gathered 
together unto Him," (II. Thess. 2.) per- 
fected at last, no longer Suffering and Mili- 
tant but all Triumphant, '' a glorious Church 
without spot or wrinkle," (Ephes. 5.) 
^' clothed with fine linen glittering and white, 
the bride of the Lamb "? (Apoc. 21.) 

What joy there shall be in that " day of 
the Lord " when the work of '' everyone that 
loveth and maketh a lie " (Apoc. 22.) shall 
be brought to naught, and Truth, Truth pre- 
vail at last ! when there shall be but one stand- 
ard of judgement and of goodness — His 
Judgement and His Will; when the secrets of 
His Providence shall be made known for the 
adoration and admiration of all men; when 
His government of the world and His deal- 
ings with each and every soul shall be justified 
and " the patience of the Saints " (Apoc. 14.) 
have their reward ! At the thought of that 
Day our hearts expand with a loyalty that 
leaves no room for self-seeking, with that 
pride in Him which is the keynote of the ex- 
ultation of the Saints : '' We give Thee thanks, 
O Lord God Almighty, who art and who wast 



" The Day of Our Lord " 241 

and who art to come : because Thou hast taken 
to Thee Thy great power and Thou hast 
reigned." (Apoc. ii.) '* Salvation to our 
God who sitteth upon the throne and to the 
Lamb . . . Amen. Benediction and glory, 
and wisdom and thanksgiving, honour and 
power, and strength to our God for ever 
and ever. Amen. (Apoc. 7.) 

There is thus a twofold expectation with 
which we look forward to this *' Day of the 
Lord." We await it with dread for it is the 
*May of wrath," (Rom, 2.) but also with 
joy and confidence for it is '' the day of re- 
demption," (Ephes. 4.) ^' the day of our 
Lord Jesus Christ," (IL Cor. i.) *' when 
He shall come to be glorified in His Saints 
and to be made wonderful in all them who 
have believed." (ILThess. i.) 

This '* day of Christ " was continually in 
the heart and on the lips of St. Paul. He 
speaks of it again and again to his beloved 
Philippians. (Phil, i.) To Timothy he 
merely says, *^ in that day," " against that 
day," (IL Tim. i and 4.) as reference suffi- 
cient to what was constantly in the minds of 
both. 

In his own affectionate way he uses this 
** waiting for the manifestation of our Lord 
Jesus Christ" (I. Cor. i.) as a powerful in- 
centive to fervour and perseverance: ''We 



242 Heavenwards 

beseech you, brethren, by the coming of our 
Lord Jesus Christ and of our gathering to- 
gether unto Him." . . . (II. Thess. 2.) The 
day of the Lord shall come as a thief in the 
night. But the children of light and children 
of the day are always to rejoice, to pray with- 
out ceasing, in all things to give thanks that 
their whole spirit and soul and body may be 
preserved blameless in the coming of our Lord 
Jesus Christ. (I. Thess. 5.) 

In St. Peter, too, we see the same eager 
longing for a Day whose terrors he depicts in 
words unsurpassed for their appalling force: 
*' Looking for and hasting unto the coming 
of the day of the Lord by which the heavens 
being on fire shall be dissolved and the ele- 
ments shall melt in the burning heat." (11. 
Peter 3.) 

So habitually did the first faithful live in 
expectation of the Second Coming of Christ, 
that they came to look upon it as immediate. 
It was an expectancy that thrilled the Church 
for centuries, and served to sustain her amid 
the fierceness of the persecution and dangers 
by which she was assailed. It enabled Chris- 
tians to withstand the seduction of a corrupt 
pagan society; it supported the martyrs in 
their torments; it inspired the detachment of 
the anchorets who fled the world's business, 
and honours and pleasures altogether lest 



" The Day of Our Lord '' 243 

they should be found unprepared at the 
Lord's Coming. 

Why should not the same motive have 
force with us in our very different vocations? 
Shall Job look forward with such steadfast 
trust and desire to beholding his Redeemer 
at the Last Day, and we see it approaching 
with no feelings but dread? The remem- 
brance of it in the spirit of the early Church 
would keep up in our hearts that sense of fel- 
lowship with Christ, that personal love of 
Him, of desire for His glory, of union with 
Him in mind and heart and interests which 
St. Paul desires for us. It would keep our 
hearts pure, and peaceful, and detached, un- 
worldly in the midst of worldliness, unspotted 
amid corruption, undismayed at the changes 
and troubles of this passing life. Because " we 
have not here a lasting city," we shall be able 
to part without repining with the things of 
this world. Because we love Christ above 
all things we shall desire to see His glory and 
to be with Him. 

And — ^we shall heed His word of warn- 
ing, ** Watch! Watch ye therefore, praying 
at all times, that you may be accounted worthy 
to escape all these things that are to come, 
and to stand before the Son of Man. (St. 
Luke 21.) And what I say to you I say to 
all— Watch! " 




XLIV 

ST. MARY MAGDALEN 

^HERE and how did He first 
cross her path? Was it the 
majesty of His bearing, the 
glance of His eye, the tone of 
His voice, the word that fell from His lips, 
that captivated her and made her His for 
ever? We are not told. But we know it 
was the divine influence acting through these 
channels, the special ray of grace destined for 
her from all eternity, that enlightened, sub- 
dued, and drew her powerfully to Him and 
secured to Him for ever all the devotedness 
of that ardent heart. 

There is consolation here for us who have 
not yet seen Him. We shall never in this life 
meet Him like Mary Magdalen. But for 
us, too, He has special graces prepared from 
eternity, and sent when their hour is come 
through the circumstances of our lives. In 
a Communion, in a book taken up at an odd 
moment, in a chance conversation, Christ, 
bringing with Him the grace of our life, 
may come. 

244 



St. Mary Magdalen 245 

" But not," someone will say, ** with the 
attractiveness, the overmastering charm with 
which He came to her." 

And what of that ! Our Lord will not in- 
deed come visibly and suddenly into our life 
as into hers and change the face of all things 
to us. But if we will heed His invitation and 
work with His grace, He will make Himself 
more and more to us day by day, and change 
us from what we are to what He desires to 
see us. 

God has a special service for each one of 
us. To this end He gives graces specially 
adapted thereto — these, not those. We must 
not covet the portion of another whose task 
is different, but lay hold on our own grace 
and work it diligently. If He puts the ham- 
mer and plane into our hands, we must not 
want the palette or the burin. If our sphere 
of labour is plainly within the walls of our 
home, we must not pine for the hospital or 
the slums. The reward we want from Him 
when our work is done must be for the work 
He gives us to do. His estimate of its worth 
will not be determined by the judgements of 
men. The weights of the sanctuary are ut- 
terly different from the valuations of earth. 
Before Him, service is measured, not by its 
outward seeming, but by the intention of the 
will. The coster's and the charwoman's is 



246 Heavenwards 

more prized than the politician's and the 
preacher's if the motive that inspires it be 
worthier, that Is more purely directed to His 
service and praise. 

Why waste our time, then, in fretting for 
fields of labour which are beyond our reach ! 
Surely our Master may put us where He will. 
And when we know that the spot assigned 
to us to tend is chosen in view of our special 
aptitudes and reward, how is it we are so 
perverse as to desire anything different? 

So with our temperament and surroundings 
and gifts. If we have not the ardour of 
Magdalen, or been called to the Feet of 
Christ Himself for our absolution. He will 
not expect from us what He looked for from 
her. But He will and does expect at our 
hands the service for which our capabilities 
and the daily current of our lives furnish the 
opportunities. It was not to the ten talents 
or to the four that the praise: ** Well done, 
good and faithful servant," was given, but to 
the fidelity that had multiplied in each case 
the Master's trust. 

^' Take what is thine and go thy way," our 
Lord says to us lovingly, when we look dis- 
contentedly at our own penny and enviously 
at another's. He does not ask us to use an- 
other's grace and bring to Him another's 
w^ork for reward. By the way, how many of 



St. Mary Magdalen 247 

the Saints, had they been so minded, might 
have desired our graces and opportunities! 
Instead of coveting what has not been given 
us, let us like them put to profit our own stock, 
fight our own difficulties, make up our own 
crown. 

We notice, perhaps, that it is the marvel- 
lous and the exceptional in the Saints that we 
are wont to envy. We do not find ourselves 
sighing after the years of rigorous penance 
and lonely prayer when He was gone, by 
which Magdalen kept her heart for Him who 
had won it, and made reparation for the past. 
It is the sweets of God's consolations that we 
want; not further opportunities of service, 
but pleasant pastures for our own delectation. 
Does this look quite like the self-forgetful- 
ness that might entitle us to special favour! 

Magdalen had her singular graces and re- 
ward. Ours, too, are singular, unlike those 
of any other, entitling us to a special place 
in His Heart whom with her we love to call 
in love and trust " Rabboni." Can we desire 
anything more or better? 




XLV 

TRUST 

*Thy sins are forgiven thee, go in peace/' (S. Luke 7.) 

|0W strangely timorous are these 
poor hearts of ours! Do what 
He will, God cannot bring us to 
confide in Him as we ought. In 
spite of the tenderest words and deeds and 
promises by which He seeks to win us, we 
seem to have a lurking suspicion that He can- 
not really care for us and wish us well. Worst 
of all, it is in the matter most vital to us, sin 
and its forgiveness, that our mistrust reaches 
its height. We think it safer to doubt God's 
pardon than to take His word for it. He 
says to us: ''Go in peace," and we remain 
troubled. We are like frightened children 
who have been cruelly treated and are dazed 
and bewildered when they come into kind 
hands. For a time tender words and ways 
puzzle instead of reassuring them. But, un- 
like the children, some of us remain distrust- 
ful to the end. Our Father's love and good- 
ness has never been able to inspire the con- 
fidence He asks and prizes. 

248 



Trust 249 

We say we cannot help ourselves, we are 
made that way. This is surely a mistake; 
we can help ourselves greatly by the thought- 
ful pondering of the words and ways by 
which He shows us that He means us to take 
Him at His word. Those who knew Him 
best during His life on earth never dreamed 
of believing that penitence to be sincere and 
seemly must be downhearted and inert. Mag- 
dalen after her absolution was the constant 
companion of Mary Immaculate and stood 
by her side beneath the Cross. After his fall 
and forgiveness, Peter's love showed the same 
ardour and venturesomeness that had char- 
acterised it before. 

And look at the Prodigal Son, the model 
penitent set before us by Our Lord Himself. 
He knew his father's heart or he would never 
have gone home at all, yet there may well 
have been misgivings on the way. But when 
he fell on his knees before him and felt the 
pressure of the arms round his neck, and the 
wet tears on his cheek, and knew from the 
tender words that he was forgiven quite, and 
taken back to his home not as a servant but 
as a son — did he think propriety required him 
to question these evidences of love and to 
show himself downcast and dissatisfied? 

Oh that we were like that poor boy after 
his return! That we went home with our 



250 Heavenwards 

Father grateful and happy, contented, more 
than contented with all He had done for us. 
But we go on doubting and sulking, saying 
we are unlike Magdalen and Peter who had 
their forgiveness from the lips of Christ Him- 
self. No such comforting assurance has been 
given us. Nor will it be given if we wait till 
doomsday. Nor has it been given to the 
millions upon millions who, trusting in the 
promise, '' he that heareth you heareth Me, 
whose sins you shall forgive they are for- 
given," have knelt at the feet of Christ in 
the confessionals of the Church, and gone 
away — In peace. 

// we will continue sullen and querulous, 
there is no help for it, but at least let us be 
honest enough to own that the fault is our 
own, that the Almighty God can do no more 
for us, and that the thankfulness and happy 
trust which are so beautiful a part of real 
penitence are conspicuously absent from our 
own. 




XLVI 

RUNNING 

'I, therefore, so run not as at an uncertainty/'' (I. Cor. 9.) 

HIS, the most simple, unlettered 
child of the Church may say with 
fullest confidence. Whilst ** the 
wise and prudent " are crying out 
that there is no certainty for us except in the 
evidence of the senses — where the common- 
est juggler and ventriloquist will tell us it 
certainly is not — ** the little ones " are walk- 
ing on securely amidst spiritual realities as far 
above the things of sense as the soul is above 
the body. 

Nay, they do more than walk, they run. 
Now running implies such confidence in the 
path that the whole attention can be fixed on 
the goal, such delight in the prospect that 
there is no temptation to tarry by the way, 
such inward vigour, that the limbs find pleas- 
ure in putting out their strength, such prep- 
aration and facilities of the road, that it is 
neither too stony nor too steep. 

Happy children of the Catholic Church! 
for this is or may be the lot for every one of 
251 



252 Heavenwards 

them. Like the great Apostle, they run at 
no uncertainty. Many an honest seeker 
spends the better part of life in painful search 
for his road, whilst they, from early dawn, 
perhaps, have had their feet firmly set therein. 
** The faith once delivered to the Saints " is 
passed down to them as a torch on a perilous 
path. It has guided multitudes of their breth- 
ren gone on before, and brought them safe 
to their Home ; it will do the like for all those 
who grasp it firmly and walk by its light. Its 
ray falls steadily on the things of time, that 
the traveller may not be lured from his path 
by the fascination of passing charms ; it shows 
the Home on the mountain, so bright, so in- 
viting, that the weary step quickens once more 
into a run. 

With such light and help, with such wel- 
come awaiting us, how is it we do not hasten 
forward one and all ! There is enough, there 
is everything to make us run — not as at an 
uncertainty, but to the reward promised us 
on the word of God, to the Kingdom pre- 
pared for us from the foundation of the 
world. The goal of the journey is no matter 
for indifference, nor for resignation, but for 
burning desire, and steady effort, and faith- 
ful perseverance to the end. We must not 
crawl to it, nor even hasten — but run. 




XLVII 

" LORD, TEACH US TO PRAY " 

l)T. Alphonsus Ligouri, consider- 
ing the vast multitude assem- 
bled in the valley of Jehosha- 
phat at the Last Day, await- 
ing the coming of the Judge, asks what has 
divided them into those two ranks which can 
never again be united. On the right, is the 
dazzling company of those who stand with 
lifted heads and longing hearts because their 
Redemption is at hand. Herded together on 
the left, is the appalling multitude of those 
on whom irreparable ruin has come. 

What is the cause of the sundering of this 
vast gathering? Why is it that these have 
saved and those have lost their souls? Is it 
that some have inherited a temperament nat- 
urally prone to virtue and others to vice? 
that the good education and home influences 
here have been wanting there? that one set 
has been shielded from temptations to which 
others have been exposed? that there have 
been no grievous and repeated falls on one 
side, and many on the other? 

253 



254 Heavenwards 

No, none of these things is the cause of 
the difference to which their lives have 
brought them. On both sides there have been 
good homes and bad, good example and bad, 
violent temptations, and grand opportunities. 
By the force of external circumstances alone, 
no man stands or falls, but by the way he 
exerts his free-will upon them and uses or 
neglects the help of prayer. 

By prayer those on the right have put to 
profit the good in themselves and in their 
surroundings, and neutralised the evil. By 
neglect of prayer those on the left have 
wasted their advantages and fallen victims to 
their corrupt inclinations. 

Here is the secret: what must be our peti- 
tion when we learn it? Surely — *' Lord, 
teach us to pray, and help us to persevere in 
humble fervent prayer to the end! " 




XLVIII 

OUR ANGEL GUARDIAN 

*What can we give him sufficient for these things?'' (Tobias 12.) 

IHOSE who have lived with Saints 
tell us that nearness to them in 
time of prayer has a wonderful 
power of enkindling fervour. We 
live all our life long in close companionship 
with an Angel of God. What if we were to 
remember his presence more in time of prayer, 
to draw closer to him then, that from his 
glowing ardour we might inflame our own 
cold hearts ! 

And would it be doing too much by way of 
return for his untiring devotion to us, if we 
were sometimes to return thanks to God in 
his behalf, and offer him our congratulations 
as we are wont to do to our friends of earth? 

My God, I thank Thee for the glorious 
spirit that, straight from Thy immediate 
Presence, and the sight of Thy unveiled Face, 
is sent to minister to me. I thank and bless 
Thee for his creation, for the Divine com- 

255 



256 Heavenwards 

placency that from all eternity has rested on 
him, for his spotless innocence that no breath 
of sin has ever tarnished, for his perfect 
beauty, and for that special excellence which 
makes him singularly acceptable to Thee and 
beloved. 

I thank Thee for his loyalty to Thee when 
so many of his companions fell away, for the 
eternal happiness then assured to him, that 
no further trial can ever endanger, that un- 
abating shall be his for ever. 

I thank Thee, that because of some pecu- 
liar fitness, known to Thee, he and no other 
has been Thy choice for me, to be my guar- 
dian and companion through life. I thank 
and bless Thee for all the help and grace 
which in time of need his prayer has won for 
me, for all the graces yet in store for me, 
and the happy death his prayer will secure 
to me, the welcome Thou wilt give us both 
when he brings me to Thee for Judgement, 
the help on earth he will procure for me and 
bring me in Purgatory, the joy with which 
he will come for me when my time has come, 
the contentment with which he will present 
me purified and perfected before Thy Face. 

O my Lord, to me hidden, to him unveiled, 
reward him, I beseech Thee, as Thou know- 
est how, for his faithful love and care of me, 
and make me draw from his constant nearness 



Our Angel Guardian 257 

to me especially in time of prayer the rever- 
ence and fervour in which I am so sadly 
wanting. 

Blessed spirit, nearest and dearest to me of 
the citizens of Heaven, bring me safely to my 
place before the Throne of God where I may 
praise Him with thee for ever. And help 
me to begin now what is to be my occupation 
for eternity. Help me in prayer to realise 
thy nearness; inspire me with thy reverence 
for the God of Heaven and earth here truly 
present; inflame me with thy burning love of 
Him; unite my adoration with thine; let me 
thank Him with thee for benefits which I ap- 
preciate so poorly though they cost the blood 
of God to purchase. Share with me thy 
vehement desires for His glory, thy swiftness 
in His service, thy zeal for His little ones, 
the vigilance, patience and love with which 
thou dost guard and minister to them. 

Teach me, my elder brother, to do our 
Father's Will as It is done in Heaven, with- 
out misgiving, without delay, with the delight 
that comes of absolute loyalty and perfect 
trust. Get me deeper, more lively faith in the 
Real Presence on the altar, known by sight to 
thee, by faith to me. How different is my 
faith to that of the Saints! As they knelt 
before the altar by the side of their Guard- 
ian Angels, what wonderful worship, what 



258 Heavenwards 

acceptable prayer and praise went up to God. 
My cold distracted prayer is surely displeasure 
and distress to thee. Help me to a converse 
with God more like to thine. Pray for this, 
that I may be a less unworthy companion for 
thee when we come together before the altar 
to speak to thy God and mine. 




XLIX 

" THE SERPENT DECEIVED ME " 

(Gen. 3.) 

'To this end he came to thee that he might deceive thee."" 

(II. Kings 3.) 

ILLUSIONS serve our enemy's pur- 
pose better in the long run than 
temptation. Evil in itself is un- 
attractive; we are conscious of 
yielding to it for the bait it offers to passion 
and against the calm judgement of reason. 
We arm ourselves against it by prayer and the 
Sacraments. When we conquer, we know 
there is laid up for us the reward of those 
who have '' striven lawfully." When we 
fall, the shock rouses us, humbles us and 
makes us more wary for the future. So great, 
indeed, are the advantages to be derived from 
temptation, that the Scripture seems to make 
little account of virtue as yet untested: 
*^ What doth he know that hath not been 
tried? " (Ecclus. 34.) " Because thou wast 
acceptable to God it was necessary that temp- 
tation should prove thee." (Tobias 12.) 
We see in effect that all God's rational crea- 

259 



260 Heavenwards 

tures who have come to the use of reason have 
had to do battle to win the victor's crown. 

Temptation, inasmuch as it is a solicitation 
to evil, is simply hateful, but at least it has 
the merit of coming to us with its evil counte- 
nance unveiled. It is otherwise with illusion, 
the harm that insinuates itself under the ap- 
pearance of good. This does not frighten us, 
we go with it unsuspectingly, we defend it, 
not only to others but to our own con- 
science. 

The state of our health requires all these 
little indulgences; prevention is better than 
cure. It is useful to read such and such ob- 
jectionable books that we may know what is 
to be said on the other side and be able to 
help others. Life is not meant to be a per- 
petual strain, '' reasonable service " is all that 
is required of us; prayer, self-denial, alms- 
giving, must be understood rationally, and 
not be allowed to interfere with our social 
duties, and the exigencies of our position. 
After all, freedom from mortal sin is all that 
is needed to get to Heaven ; the Church her- 
self does not exact more than the Sacraments 
once a year. Anything more is very well for 
those who feel called to it, but extremes are 
always dangerous, and really the eccentricities 
of pious people do not encourage one to fol- 
low in their steps. What harm if the day 



" The Serpent Deceived Me '' 261 

does go in novel reading, dressing, visits, 
amusement ! There is nothing wrong in these 
things, no hard and fast line can be drawn, the 
rush of life in these days and the necessity 
of doing as others do, obliges one to be con- 
tent with little in the way of Church going. 
As to charities, it is simply impossible to meet 
the incessant calls thrust upon one. Charity 
begins at home, one's family has the first 
claim; duty to those about us forbids us to 
think of coming into contact with the poor 
in their unsanitary homes, or of that expen- 
diture of time and talent in their service which 
those more fortunately situated than ourselves 
are able to indulge in. 

Besides this class of illusions, too patent, 
perhaps, to ensnare souls with any degree of 
earnestness in the service of God, there are 
others, which fasten on to that very earnest- 
ness like parasites on to a fruitful tree. 

There is the perpetual fear about past con- 
fessions with which some are haunted, with 
the result that through anxiety for the past, 
the present and the future are neglected, hope 
and courage die down, with all energy for the 
work of self-conquest and of self-sacrifice in 
the service of souls. 

Along with this pusillanimity, goes the pre- 
sumption that makes one prefer one's own 
judgement to one's confessor's, and to sup- 



262 Heavenwards 

pose one's spiritual condition to be so singu- 
lar that no other case presents a parallel to it, 
the moral theology of the Church has no pro- 
vision for it, her ministers one and all have no 
experience or comprehension of it. Whence it 
follows, that as in matters of salvation we must 
be on the safe side always, private judgement 
is the only guidance we can accept in a case we 
alone understand. The Church's teaching that 
safety is only secured by obedience manifestly 
does not apply to us and must be ignored. 
Life, and the patience of our so-called guides 
must be spent in the perpetual rehearsal of the 
same old story and in the attempt on our part 
to prove how inadequate is their theological 
training to reassure a soul involved in such 
mystery as ours. Holy Scripture describes 
our frame of mind: *' Thy wisdom and thy 
knowledge, this hath deceived thee. And 
thou hast said in thy heart : I am, and besides 
me there is no other." (Isaias 47.) 

Again, there is the further presumption of 
maintaining our own opinion against the 
teaching of the Vicar of Christ in the matter 
of frequent Communion. He says that free- 
dom from conscious mortal sin and a right 
intention is suificient for a good and fruitful 
Communion; that our Lord desires to give 
Himself to us frequently and even daily, and 
that, provided we bring these necessary dis- 



" The Serpent Deceived Me " 263 

positions, no one is to deter us from daily 
Communion. 

JVe say that, allowing this to be true in 
the main, it jars upon our views of what the 
exalted nature of the Sacrament exacts of us. 
At any rate, the meager dispositions required 
of others would not suffice to make daily ap- 
proach to Christ on our part acceptable either 
to Him or to ourselves. More must surely 
be demanded of us. And so, whilst those 
around us, relying simply on the Church's 
teaching, and thankful for the wondrous pro- 
vision made by the goodness of God for these 
difficult days of ours, throng up to the altar 
rails and, like Zaccheus of old, ** receive Him 
with joy," we, in our superior light, look on 
from behind, and wait the time when, with 
the Jansenists, we shall judge our dispositions 
sufficiently befitting the Most Holy Sacrament 
to permit us to approach ourselves. 

These are but samples of the illusions with 
which the enemy of souls blinds many who 
might be superb servants of God. Looking 
at it honestly, and in the case of others, we 
see the peril of illusion in the concerns of the 
soul. Temptation, open and straightforward 
is a foe less difficult to meet and less dan- 
gerous. So far from fostering pride, it hum- 
bles us and makes us fly fervently and trust- 
fully to God. But illusion is the very hotbed 



264 Heavenwards 

of pride. It enables us calmly to set our own 
judgement above the highest authority on 
earth, and without misgiving to accept the 
risk of so doing; to be proof against the in- 
fallible voice and the earnest solicitations of 
the Shepherd and Teacher of all the faithful 
and to the desires of God Himself. Well 
may the Church bid us pray: 

" From the illusions and temptations of the 
devil, O Lord, deliver us! " 



O SACRUM CONVIVIUM 

"Thou didst feed Thy people with the food of Angels, and gavest 
them bread from heaven, prepared without labour; having in it all 
that is delicious, and the sweetness of every taste." (Wisd. i6.) 



i 



HE food of Angels — satisfying to 
the full those noble spirits, all but 
infinite in number and variety 
and capacity for knowledge and 
for love. Who are we that their food, the 
bread of Heaven, should be ours also? 

Prepared without labour — on our part but 
not on His who gives it to us. From all eter- 
nity, Bethlehem, and Nazareth, and the Sup- 
per Room stood out clear and distinct in the 
mind of God; my Communion of to-morrow 
was foreseen, my Food prepared. All His 
Life long, Jesus desired with desire the hour 
when He should give Himself to me as my 
food. He knows the value of my soul, its 
natural dignity as an immortal spirit, created 
by God and in the image and likeness of God; 
its supernatural dignity as a child of God, re- 
deemed with the blood of God, destined to 
share for eternity the happiness of God Him- 

265 



266 Heavenwards 

self. And He judges that for a creature so 
noble, so beloved, the Bread of Angels is the 
meetest Food. They feed indeed in a hap- 
pier manner,^ but the Food is the same for 
those elder sons of God and for us whom the 
Man-God is not ashamed to call His 
brethren. 

He knows that between our place of exile 
and the Heavenly City for which we are 
bound, there are slippery paths and pitfalls, 
perils of every kind which would certainly 
be our destruction were we not protected and 
fortified from above. He must provide a sus- 
tenance that will not only repair our daily 
losses, but strengthen us against every danger, 
make us a match for>any enemy, satisfy, as 
far as may be here below, the craving of the 
soul. What could this be but Himself? 

O Heavenly Food, having in thee all that 
IS delicious and the sweetness of every taste, 
let me so hunger after thee as to be forced 
to make thee my daily bread. O living Bread, 
that hast come down from Heaven to give 
life to the world, unworthy as I am to receive 
thee, I will come and come often, that I may 
abide in thee and thou in me ; that I may live 
by thee, and be raised up by thee to everlast- 
ing life at the Last Day. 

Umit. Ch. Bk. IV. Ch. ii. 




LI 

PATIENCE 

*I know thy works, and thy labour, and thy patience." (Apoc. 2.) 

^AVE we ever noticed the stress 
which throughout the Scriptures 
God lays on patience ? He is pa- 
tient we are told because He is 
eternal. To us who are but of yesterday, 
here to-day and gone to-morow, patience 
comes with difficulty and not without long 
practice. And because it is of all things neces- 
sary for us, He urges us to the acquisition of 
it and marks His appreciation of it. 

The writers of the Old Testament often 
speak of the patience of God. Holy Job was 
given as a model of patience to all time. Our 
Lord in His Passion was *' led as a sheep to 
the slaughter "; (Isaias 53.) ** when He was 
reviled He did not revile, when He suffered 
He threatened not." (I. Peter 2.) 

St. Paul in almost all his Epistles, St. Peter, 
St. James, St. John in the Apocalypse, un- 
tiringly exhort to patience. And, indeed, it 
must have seemed the one thing necessary in 

267 



268 Heavenwards 

those days of fierce persecution of the infant 
Church: *' Hold fast that which thou hast 
that no man take thy crown," (Apoc. 3.) was 
an injunction continually needed by the first 
sorely tried followers of our Lord. 

But is it less necessary now? Is fortitude 
less called for in our days? The nature of 
the trial has changed, but indifferentism, ma- 
terialism, worldliness, human respect, are ty- 
rants with whom we can no more compound 
than could the early Christians with the exac- 
tions of the Roman Emperors — if we would 
save our souls. 

Patience is needed, to resist the constant 
pressure upon us of these forces from with- 
out, and of that traitor within who is always 
ready to make common cause with them. It 
is needed, too, in the trials of every kind with 
which life abounds, some crushing by their 
weight and suddenness, others chafing by their 
persistent friction; now severe pain, physical 
or mental, now the monotony of our daily 
task, the weariness of uncongenial work or sur- 
roundings, the failure of generous endeavour, 
the apathy or mistakes of friends — and worse 
still, our own — the odds against us in the up- 
holding of right principles, the inadequacy 
of effort to stem the torrent of evil in any 
direction, or to meet the crying needs on every 
side. How much there is to bring home to 



Patience 269 

us the need of the counsel which runs through 
Holy Scripture from beginning to end: 

'* Wait on God with patience, join thyself 
to God and endure." (Ecclus. 2.) 

" The patient man is better than the 
valiant." (Prov. 16.) 

'' Take all that shall be brought upon thee, 
and in thy sorrow endure, and in thy humilia- 
tion keep patience." (Ecclus. 2.) 

" Expect the Lord, do manfully, and let 
thy heart take courage, and wait thou for the 
Lord." (Ps. 26.) 

" If He delay wait for Him, for He will 
surely come and will not be slack." (Hab. 2.) 

** Blessed are all they that wait for Him." 
(Isaias 30.) 

'' For they shall not be confounded that 
wait for Him." (Isaias 49.) 

One reason why many give up the service 
of God altogether, and many more give up 
anything like a generous service, is because 
they have not the courage and humility to be 
patient with the poor result of their efforts at 
self-conquest. If they could bring themselves 
into shape by a few fierce blows, they would 
strike hard and have done with it. But the 
work is not to be dispatched in this fashion 
any more than a perfect head can be brought 
out of the marble by a few strokes. There 



270 Heavenwards 

must be daily, patient, toil — chiselling, filing, 
polishing, a less acute angle here, a trifle 
more rounding there. Such little, little things, 
and little too, to show for it. People who 
understand nothing of the sculptor's art come 
in and out and wonder what he has been doing 
all these weeks ; they see no change. But let a 
connoisseur or a fellow worker come in — and 
how his eye lights up! He sees how much 
has been done, how the likeness is coming out. 
Everyone will see and praise by and by. But 
to his eye there is beauty even at this stage. 
In spite of all the roughness. Finish will 
come later; he can wait for that. But his ad- 
miration and congratulation are ready now. 

So are our Lord's. He will not wait till 
He takes the finished work from us at the end, 
to say: *' Well done! " He is behind us now 
as we toil on day after day. He Is looking 
over our shoulder, watching every effort, 
often approving when others blame, noting 
with pleasure the likeness to Himself coming 
out beneath the patient endeavour helped by 
His grace. 

We must not look for sudden transforma- 
tions like St. Paul's on the road to Damascus. 
Our work, like that of almost every Saint, is 
to be a gradual one, the work of our life. 
Is this discouraging? But life is given us for 
this, It is the workshop, not the galler3^ If 



Patience 271 

"the Lord patiently expecteth," (11. Mach. 
6.) surely we may have patience with our- 
selves. We may and we must. '' Patience is 
necessary for you," says St. Paul. (Heb. lo.) 
Yes truly, for without patience perseverance 
will fail, the grace on which our eternity de- 
pends. 

Prayer, and the Sacraments, and effort, 
may for a time appear to make little differ- 
ence; we must go on in patience and in trust. 
A stage will come when every touch will tell, 
when the patient elaboration of details will 
result in the perfection of the whole, and 
God's ideal will be realised at last. " Let us 
humbly wait for His consolation." (Ju- 
dith 8.) *' Stay patiently awhile, and thou 
shalt see His great power." (IL Mach. 7.) 

So is it in the order of nature, *' first the 
blade, then the ear, afterwards the full corn 
in the ear." (S. Mark 4.) ''Be patient, 
therefore, brethren," says St. James, '' behold 
the husbandman waiteth for the precious fruit 
of the earth, patiently bearing till he receive 
the early and the latter rain. Be you, there- 
fore, also patient and strengthen your hearts," 
(S. James 5.) 

It is remarkable that our Lord Himself did 
not choose always to effect an instantaneous 
cure. When the blind man of Bethsaida was 
asked if he saw anything, he answered: '' I 



272 Heavenwards 

see men as it were trees, walking." Yet the 
wonderworking hands had touched his eyes. 
" After that again He laid His hands upon 
his eyes, and he began to see, and was restored 
so that he saw all things clearly." (S. 
Mark 8.) 

This is, indeed, the only recorded instance 
of a gradual restoration among the cures 
wrought by our Lord. But it represents the 
usual working of grace in our souls, a dispen- 
sation whose value in safeguarding humility, 
and fostering patience and fortitude, a habit 
of prayer, courage and perseverance, is not 
hard to see. 

But whilst we bear in mind that grace like 
nature works slowly and almost impercep- 
tibly, we must not therefore conclude that a 
snail's pace is all that should be expected of 
us in the way of advance, and that no blame 
attaches to us if we are much as we were years 
ago. More heart in our spiritual concerns, 
better preparation for prayer and the Sacra- 
ments would doubtless prepare the way for 
grace and enable it to do greater things for 
us. *' Do what is in thy power," A'Kempis 
tells us, " and God will be with thy good 
will." 

A daily exercise in the laborious work of 
self-training and self-sacrifice, is the cheerful 
acceptance of the ups and downs of daily life. 



Patience 273 

How far this has taken many a valiant soul, 
whose circumstances seemed hopelessly com- 
monplace, the Last Day will reveal. Heroism 
is not the monopoly of the Martyrs. Every- 
where there are sufferings that can be borne 
heroically for Christ; what is wanting is the 
effort to turn them to profit. 

Blessed are those who die for God, 
And earn the Martyr's crown of light — 

Yet he who lives for God may be 
A greater conqueror in His sight.^ 

Many motives may help us here. In pain 
of mind we may bring to remembrance the 
agony and desolation of our Lord in the Gar- 
den and on the Cross; in pain of body, the 
thorn-crowned Head, or the Five Wounds. 

Or we may take the encouragement fur- 
nished by our Lord Himself in the thought: 
" Your Father knoweth." (S. Matth. 6.) 

'^ I know thy works and thy labour. — 
What if the faithful discharge of little duties 
is taken for granted and passed by unappre- 
ciated by others — I know. The effort to be 
patient and cheerful at monotonous work, the 
suppression of unkind judgements and hasty 
words, the surrender of private wishes that 
another's may prevail, the peaceful accept- 
ance of dryness in prayer and Communion, 

^ Mav/wtt J, Adelaide Proctor. 



274 Heavenwards 

the weary waiting for the fulfilment of good 
desires, the patience and perseverance when 
the prayer of years seems to go unanswered — 
all this, I knowJ' 

Oh yes, when hope and courage are at their 
lowest, and the irksomeness of effort presses 
heaviest, what comfort and strength there is 
in the thought that our Father knows it all ! 

/ know thy patience. Patience is harder 
than the most laborious work. We tire so 
soon. We want to see results at once. To 
hold on in spite of monotony and failure, and 
no seeming progress, is hard even to the brav- 
est. But see what account He makes of it all : 

^^ / know thy works and thy labour and thy 
patience. And thou hast endured for My 
Name and hast not fainted. Be thou faithful 
unto death, and I will give thee the crown of 
life. . . . Behold I come quickly and My 
reward is with Me. (Apoc. 2. Apoc. 22.) I 
am thy protector and thy reward exceeding 
great." (Gen. 15.) 




LII 

SURSUM corda! 

F I have acquired a property in a 
distant country, I must needs, like 
the man in the Gospel, go to see 
it. Circumstances may perhaps 
prevent my starting at once, but I am impa- 
tient to be off ; meanwhile delay only whets de- 
sire and stimulates imagination. I find my- 
self at free moments, indeed at all times, con- 
juring up pictures, making plans, building cas- 
tles of all shapes and dimensions. If the cli- 
mate and productions of the country are dif- 
ferent from those at home, if it is a fair land 
with unlimited resources, fancy simply runs 
riot. I am observed to be frequently ab- 
stracted, my thoughts evidently far away ; my 
conversation, in spite of myself, betrays me. 
In short, though I cannot be said to neglect 
my present duties, I live in the future, a fact 
which under the circumstances, is considered 
not only excusable but inevitable. In a few 
years, people say, my home will be there, how 
can I be otherwise than absorbed in the pros- 
pect and in preparation. 

275 



276 Heavenwards 

Yes ; thus it would certainly be were there 
question of a little bit of this poor world. 
Mind and heart would be travelling perpetu- 
ally to that land beyond the sea, and effort 
would be necessary to concentrate my 
thoughts sufficiently on actual work at home. 
But when my possession is — not a few acres 
here for the space of this passing life, but the 
inheritance secured to me by my Baptism, 
an " inheritance incorruptible reserved in 
Heaven," (I. Peter i.) a Kingdom prepared 
for me from the foundation of the world, a 
Land fair beyond all conception, whose de- 
lights '' eye hath not seen, nor ear heard, 
nor heart conceived," — it is a different case. 
Where is my enthusiasm now? When do my 
words, my unworldly thoughts and ways be- 
tray me and show that I feel I have not here 
a lasting city and that I seek one that is to 
come ; that the sense of exile weighs upon me ; 
that I listen longingly for the invitation: 
'* Arise, make haste and come, for winter is 
now past, the rain is over and gone, the flow- 
ers have appeared in our land . . . arise and 
come " ? (Cant. 2.) 

If it is not thus with me, how can so strange 
a fact be explained? for, supposing my faith 
to be what it should be, such causes as for- 
getfulness, business, the pressure of daily 
cares, and the like, would be obviously in- 



Sursum Corda! 277 

adequate. But is my faith what it should be, 
not only firm but lively, influencing my 
thoughts, words, and acts? I notice this pe- 
culiarity about my thoughts. Of '' the Four 
Last Things to be ever remembered " I rarely 
think at all. If at distant intervals I do ad- 
vert to any, it is either to the two that pass 
swiftly never to return, or to that terrible one, 
the resource in moments of strong temptation. 
But as to the fourth, which is my portion for 
ever, my eternal dwelling-place, the reward 
I am living to secure, this hardly ever comes 
to mind. I almost look upon it as a fairy 
land, beautiful but unreal, no motive, there- 
fore, for action, no encouragement in time of 
trial, no fact having any practical bearing 
on my life. 

Yet what should interest and influence me 
like the thought of Heaven! In cases of 
threatened heart failure we keep at hand rem- 
edies which stimulate its action and reinforce 
its vitality. Why not, in hours of weariness 
and heartsinking, turn to the thought of our 
Eternal Home as a restorative and refresh- 
ment! We know enough of its joys to make 
the remembrance of them a powerful stimu- 
lant to hope and to effort. Let us take a few 
of these joys and dwell thoughtfully on them 
one by one. 

Joy in the sense of Safety. To none, we 



278 Heavenwards 

are told, does the word Safety appeal so 
forcibly as to those who have been rescued 
from shipwreck. To have been snatched 
from that peril, from those engulfing waves, 
from the cold and exhaustion, and agonised 
effort to hold on and to hope on, from the 
suspense, and the expectation every moment 
of being swept away and lost — yes, truly, the 
shipwrecked have some idea of what it is to 
be saved, of what it will be to stand upon the 
Eternal Shore and look back upon the dark- 
ness of life's sea, upon the dangers that all 
but overwhelmed us, the doubts and fears, the 
clinging of Faith when Hope and Love 
seemed gone; upon the Hand that was 
stretched out to us, the word: *' It is I," the 
Presence that rescued and sustained us to the 
end and brought us where we are. 

What will it be to see the doors of Heaven 
from the inside, and know that by no possi- 
bility can the shadow of danger come near us 
any more, " for the reward of God continueth 
for ever." (Ecclus. i8.) To behold across 
the abyss our enemy the devil, chained, and 
know that never again will any breath of 
temptation reach us. To see the world in its 
true light. How contemptible its principles 
and its allurements look from this height, yet 
how insidious we see its influence to be and 
how formidable Its snares! And the flesh, 



Sursum Corda! 279 

the most dangerous of our three enemies, the 
treacherous ally that so often sided with the 
foe and gave us more trouble than the other 
two together — what of that? Our conflict 
with it is over, the soul has come triumphant 
out of the struggle, and the body passing 
through its purgatory, not indeed of pain but 
of humiliation unspeakable, wrecked and 
ruined to all seeming, is safe in His hands 
who will '' reform it and make it like to the 
body of His glory." (Philip. 3.) Through 
its frequent union during life with the sacred 
flesh of its Saviour, through His solemn 
promise to it in virtue of that union, (S. John 
6.) '' my flesh shall rest in hope." (Ps. 15.) 

Rest and Peace — the twofold blessing with 
which, in the beautiful language of her early 
days, the Church lays us to sleep when life's 
work is done, the prayer for us which will 
never cease till she sees the last of the Elect 
safely Home! 

Rest. But the reward of rest supposes la- 
bour. If I want the rest of evening I must 
be able to show the fruits of the day's toil. 
What am I making ready for that evening 
when the Master of the vineyard will say: 
*' Call the labourers and pay them their 
hire"? 

I have a twofold task in life, the training 
of my soul by the correction of the evil in it 



280 Heavenwards 

and the development of the good, in order to 
bring out in myself the likeness to Christ 
which will fit me for a place in His Kingdom. 
And secondly, the work for others which in 
one shape or another is required of us all. 
Am I providing this? Negative work, the 
simple harming of none, will not suffice, even 
were it possible. Service such as this did not 
avail the unprofitable servant of the Gospel, 
and will not avail me or entitle me to rest. 
'' What good shall I do that I may have life 
everlasting? " (S. Matth. 19.) '' Hate not 
laborious works ordained by the Most High " 
(Ecclus. 7.), is the admonition for this life; 
''they shall rest from their labour" (Apoc. 
17.), is the promise for the next. Everyone 
must labour. '' Man is born to labour and 
the bird to fly." (Job 5.) God lays the ma- 
terials at our door in the shape of talents and 
opportunities; it is for us to turn them into 
merit and titles to reward and rest. 

Peace. We all know the sensation pro- 
duced on us by a glorious sunset after a 
stormy day; when the thunderclouds are 
rolled away and the western sky is lovely with 
the delicate tints brought by the rain; when 
the stillness of the country air is broken only 
by the quiet sounds of evening, and from 
freshened leaves and dripping fern rise scents 
that fill our very soul with fragrance and with 



Sursum Corda! 281 

ecstasy. What will it be when the storms of 
passion are lulled for ever; when *' the sun 
shall go down no more, and the days of our 
mourning shall be ended "; (Isaias 60.) and 
the tears of earth, if their memory remains 
when the hand of God has wiped them away, 
(Apoc. 7.) will shine only with the glory they 
reflect ! 

We know, too, the sense of relief and glad- 
ness with which the heart of a nation beats 
when after a long and anxious war peace is 
proclaimed. What shall it be when the soul 
so long a battlefield shall be the field of a vic- 
tory whose fruits shall last for ever; when 
sword and shield, all '^ the armour of God '' 
by which in the evil day we were able '* to 
extinguish the fiery darts of the most wicked 
one," (Ephes. 6.) shall be taken from our 
weary hands and replaced by the victor's 
palm ! Within and around us God shall pro- 
claim a universal peace — peace with Him, 
stable throughout eternity, peace with the 
partners in our eternal joy, peace with our- 
selves: our faculties at rest because in pos- 
session of their object, all working together 
in perfect harmony, undisturbed both within 
and without by anything that could trouble 
for an instant their perfect content and bliss ! 

The Joy of Memory. What sweetness 
there will be here, as we recall past crosses, 



282 Heavenwards 

struggles, and victories ; past penance that has 
made joy in Heaven; past service, light and 
unworthy but so magnificently requited; past 
grace which has so abundantly blossomed into 
glory! Sweetness, above all, in the remem- 
brance of God's dealings with our soul — of 
the Providence that embraced our life from 
first to last '' reaching from end to end might- 
ily and ordering all things sweetly." (Wisd. 
8.) ** As a man traineth up his son, so the 
Lord thy God hath trained thee up. (Deut. 
8.) ** The Lord hath carried thee as a man 
is wont to carry his little son all the way that 
you have come to this place.'' (Deut. i.) ''I 
have been with thee wherever thou hast 
walked," (IL Kings 7.) and ''all thy ways 
were prepared." (Judith 9.) Could there be 
any regret in that retrospect, it would come 
from the memory of those hours when mis- 
trust overshadowed our soul and hid from 
us the ever mindful, ever tender love of our 
Father who is in Heaven. 

Joy in our Faith of heretofore, when we 
see the light to which it has brought us, when 
we know by experience the truth of our Lord's 
words: '' Blessed are they that have not seen 
and have believed; " (S. John 20.) when we 
find mists swept away, difficulties gone, ob- 
scurities all lost in the blaze of Truth, in the 
light of God's Countenance. What joy that 



Sursum Corda! 283 

we held on to His word and to the hand of 
His Church and would not be staggered by 
the whisperings of infidelity or misbelief! 
" With the hearing of the ear I have heard 
Thee, but now my eye seeth Thee.'' (Job 42.) 

Joy in our Hope, when we see how trust 
glorified God and is justified in Heaven be- 
yond all measure and desire. " What I do 
thou knowest not now but thou shalt know 
hereafter." (S. John 13.) He said to us in 
the day of our trouble long ago. And we 
believed and hoped — and now to see what He 
has given us in reward! 

Joy most of all in our Charity. " Now 
there remain Faith, Hope and Charity, these 
three, but the greatest of these is Charity." 
(I. Cor. 13.) Greatest because '' it is poured 
forth in our hearts by the Holy Ghost who is 
given to us," (Rom. 5.) and because it is 
never superseded. Faith and Hope brought 
us to the gates of Heaven and there took 
leave of us for their work was done. But 
" Charity never falleth away." (I. Cor. 13.) 
It alone remains, unalterable through the 
Eternal Years, for '* they shall see His Face " 
(Apoc. 22.) and *' the loveliness of His 
beauty," (Ps. 49.) *' the Beloved of the be- 
loved." (Ps. 67.) 

What joy there will be in every aspiration 
of love in time, that has increased our near- 



284 Heavenwards 

ness to Him in eternity! What joy, too, in 
the love we have shown Him in all who were 
His, when He thanks us for it as shown to 
Himself: *' As long as you did it to one of 
these My least brethren, you did it to Me." 
(S. Matth. 25.) 

Joy of the Understanding — flooded with 
light, satisfied at last with Truth, face to face 
with mysteries, which remain and must remain 
such to every finite intelligence, but into which 
the soul may gaze and gaze, which it may 
penetrate more and more, with ever growing 
wonder and delight. *' In Thy light we shall 
see light." (Ps. 35.) "We see through a 
glass in a dark manner, but then face to face. 
Now I know in part, but then I shall know 
even as I am known." (I. Cor. 13.) 

Joy of the Will — the royal power of the 
soul, having the tremendous responsibility of 
freedom and of choice. How often, like the 
quicksilver of the barometer, it has fluctuated 
during life— what joy now to see it fixed at 
" Set Fair " for ever, all its choices, desires, 
affections, absolutely conformed to the Will 
of God, confirmed in good, in what is best, 
without the fear of ever swerving again! 
What joy for us, who have had so much 
cause to mistrust ourselves and fear for the 
future, to know that we can never, never again 
misuse any creature, or fall short of the per- 



Sursum Corda! 285 

feet praise, reverence, and service of God for 
which we were created, to know that all our 
joy in any creature, all our happiness through- 
out eternity will be glory and contentment to 
Him who makes us welcome to all He has 
and is: ** Good and faithful servant, enter 
thou into the joy of thy Lord! " 

Joy in the Gifts of Glory. After the Resur- 
rection we shall receive back from the hand 
of God the body that was our companion in 
life, endowed with new and wonderful pow- 
ers — immortality, impassibility, agility, clar- 
ity. It can neither die henceforth nor suffer. 
It can pass with the rapidity of thought from 
one point to another, however distant. Like 
the Body of Christ after His Resurrection, 
it can penetrate substance. It is glorious with 
heavenly light, an object of admiration and 
delight to all the Blessed and to God Himself. 

Joy in our Companions. '* There the 
wicked cease from troubling and the weary 
are at rest." (Job 3.) '* There no one shall 
resist thee, no man shall complain of thee, no 
man shall hinder thee, nothing shall stand in 
thy way." (Imit. Ch., Bk. III., ch. 49.) All 
around are friends, bound to us by ties closer 
than any known on earth. Those w^e have 
helped in life, those who have helped us, how 
they long for our company; what joy, what 
congratulations there will be when we arrive 



286 Heavenwards 

amongst them! Think of being welcomed 
and acknowledged as one of that glorious 
family ^' where all shall be called and shall be 
the sons of God" — (L John 3.) Confessors 
and Virgins, Martyrs and Apostles, Angels 
and Archangels, all looking upon us as broth- 
ers and sisters, the Queen of Heaven herself 
owning us as dearly loved servants and chil- 
dren ! Think of mingling with them on 
terms of equality, not feeling awkward, not 
out of place, but worthy of them, at home 
with them from the first ! 

The Reunions of Heaven. But who shall 
tell the joy when those to whom we were 
bound on earth by ties of friendship or kin- 
dred, come forth from the bright ranks to 
welcome us and claim us as their own ! when 
we recognise them amid all that glory as the 
same ; when we find again the love of bygone 
days, purified, perfected, yet the same that 
was our joy on earth; when we go over with 
them God's dealings v/ith us In the past, in 
the changes and trials of life, and see and 
own with thanksgiving and praise: " He hath 
done all things well ! " 

The blessedness of this reunion with those 
we love, loses with some its power of con- 
solation by perplexing questions and mistaken 
notions as to our life in Heaven. '' Will God 
so absorb every faculty of our souls as to 



Sursum Corda! 287 

make them indifferent to all beside? Are 
the ties of earth's relationships broken for 
ever by the hand of Death, or will they be 
reformed in Heaven to exist throughout 
eternity? Shall we know our own there and 
love and be loved as in the old days here? " 

Holy Scripture seems itself to answer these 
questions for us. In the intercourse of our 
Lord with His friends after His Resurrec- 
tion do we note any diminution of His affec- 
tion for them, any ignoring of former ties, 
any f orgetf ulness ? Or do we find Him on 
the contrary more mindful, more tender than 
before? 

We do indeed note one difference, one that 
appeals with singular force to our human 
hearts and experience. There is a playful- 
ness about His dealings with them in His 
Risen Life that is one of its special and most 
attractive features. The baptism with which 
He had to be baptised, that lay like a weight 
upon His Soul all life through — ^was over, 
and a joyousness, unseen before, appears in 
Him. He hides from Mary Magdalen, 
watches her as she seeks Him, questions her 
about her trouble and her tears, hears her 
loving plans, and at last, for the consolation 
of His own Heart as much as for hers, re- 
veals Himself, calling her by her name. He 
walks between two of His disciples during 



288 Heavenwards 

an afternoon, hidden from their eyes but mak- 
ing their hearts burn within them, and when 
His work for them is done, makes Himself 
known to them — and disappears. 

He comes in sweet surprises when the 
Eleven are met together, not for prayer but 
for the evening meal — a more homely hour, 
better suited to their needs and His designs. 
At a time when intercourse between friends is 
freest, He could better, by reviving old 
memories and courtesies, and by acts of con- 
descension, so tender as to seem hardly con- 
sistent with His glorified state, reassure them 
as to His identity; that it was indeed ** Jesus 
yesterday, to-day, and the same for ever " 
(Heb. 13.) > who came and went, and taught, 
and chid, and comforted as before. ** It is 
I, fear not. . . . Why are you troubled, and 
why do thoughts arise in your hearts?" 
They think Him a spirit — and He shows 
them His hands and feet, and eats before 
them the honeycomb put tremblingly into His 
hands. They think that even should it be 
Himself, He must be different now, different 
at least to them who have shown themselves 
such sorry friends in need — and He calls 
them by the new and endearing name of 
'' brethren." '' See My hands and My feet 
that it is I Myself, handle Me and see." He 
repeats. He insists, He omits nothing to con- 



Sursum Corda! 289 

vince them that His glorious life which has 
changed so much, has left His love for them 
the same. He blesses their fruitless fishing 
with a miraculous draught as in the past. He 
invites them to dine, prepares their meal, and 
" passing, ministers to them," the words by 
which He Himself describes His gracious 
familiarity with His servants in the future 
Kingdom of God. ( S. Luke 12.) 

Speaking of the General Resurrection, St. 
John says: *' We are now the sons of God, 
and It hath not yet appeared what we shall 
be. We know that when He shall appear we 
shall be like to Him because we shall see Him 
as He is." (I. John 3.) 

Like Him. How affectionate, then, how 
anxious for reunion with those who have sor- 
rowed on our account, how desirous to show 
ourselves still the same : ** Behold and see 
that It is I Myself." It will be the old love 
purified and perfected, but tender as ever. 
What was beautiful In the relations of earth 
will be preserved In Heaven, that only having 
passed away which Is Inconsistent with the 
state of glory. In that Holy Family which 
Is the model of all others, the Son of God 
will still and for ever be the Son of Mary, 
and Joseph's Foster Son. How, then, can we 
doubt that the exceeding joy resulting from 
reunion with those dear to us here, is reserved 



290 Heavenwards 

for us hereafter! In her prayer for father 
and mother, the Church puts these words on 
our lips: '' Grant that I may see them again 
in eternal glory.'' 

But if there are some who refuse them- 
selves the consolation of these thoughts, there 
are others who seem to look forward to these 
sweet reunions as to the main happiness of 
Heaven. This is, of course, to misconceive 
utterly the nature of that happiness. They 
are but one of its joys, thrown as it were into 
the scale to make it overflow, no more to be 
compared with the essential and supreme joy 
of the Vision of God than the thin fringe of 
surf can be compared with the ocean. But 
it helps us to realise something of Heaven's 
beatitude, something of God's liberality, 
something of the promise: ^' they shall be in- 
ebriated with the plenty of Thy house. Thou 
shalt make them drink of the torrent of Thy 
pleasure," (Ps. 35.) that the joy they will 
bring should be an accessory merely, but one 
of God's rewards, over and above the *^ reward 
exceeding great " (Gen. 15.) which is Him- 
self. 

Joy in our God. Here we are out of our 
depth at once, carried away and lost in an 
ocean without sounding or shore. What will 
It be to have reached the End for which we 
were created, to enter upon the true life for 



Sursum Corda! 291 

which life on earth was but preparation and 
probation ; to live at each moment the fullest, 
most intense life of which the powers of our 
soul, quickened and strengthened beyond con- 
ception, are henceforth capable ; to be able to 
employ upon God with their whole energy, 
easily, delightedly, perpetually, the faculties 
which on earth were so hard to fix; no ten- 
sion, no fatigue; unceasing activity coupled 
with absolute repose; content without satiety; 
the discovery in Him of new marvels, new 
beauties, with delight in the discovery ever 
fresh, ever new — and this throughout eter- 
nity! 

It may not be. 
That one who looks upon that light, can turn 
To other object, willingly, his view. 
For all the good that will may covet, there 
Is summ'd; and all, elsewhere defective found 
Complete.-^ 

*' Enter into the joy of thy Lord!" O 
sweetest of invitations! to enter in and take 
possession of Him in whom is all good, all 
we can desire — Holiness, Beauty, Tender- 
ness, Wisdom and Strength and Joy at the 
Fountain head- To see all things in Him, 
and love all with and in Him; to have Him 
as our own possession without fear of ever 
losing Him; to cry out to Him with the 
Blessed Cure d'Ars: '' My God, I have Thee 

1 Paradise, Canto XXXII. Dante. 



292 Heavenwards 

at last, I hold Thee fast, Thou shalt never 
escape me any more ! " 

The happiness of the Blessed overflows on 
every side. The cup of each is full, and, for 
the love they bear one another, the joy of 
each is the joy of all. '' Alleluia shall be sung 
in its streets," (Tobias 13.) is said of the 
Heavenly City, and truly such song must be 
a necessity for those full hearts. " God is 
attended by ten thousand, thousands of them 
that rejoice." (Ps. 67.) '' And they shall be 
His people, and God Himself with them shall 
be their God. And God shall wipe away all 
tears from their eyes, and death shall be no 
more, nor mourning, nor crying, nor sorrow 
shall be any more, for the former things are 
passed away. . . . And they shall see His 
Face, and His name shall be on their fore- 
heads . . . and they shall reign for ever and 
ever." (Apoc. 21.22.) 

This is what waits for us : a few years at 
most, and all this will be ours ! Can we won- 
der that the Church, whose mission it is to 
soothe the sorrows of Time by the hope of 
Eternity, is always seeking to lift our hearts 
above the trials and losses of earth to the 
treasure we have in Heaven, that her daily 
cry to us from ttn thousand altars Is 
^^ Sursum Corda! ^* 



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